Opinion: The Genome Generation

Monash alumna Dr Elizabeth Finkel (BSc(Hons) 1979) has recently released The Genome Generation, which details her analysis of genomics research. She says the genome era is transforming our understanding of medicine and agriculture.

2011 was a reckoning time for the Human Genome Project.  A decade after reading the entire three billion letters of a human DNA code – an epic that took eleven years, an army of researchers and a cost of three billion dollars – what had it delivered?  For some commentators the answer was, not much.

A visit to the doctor’s office showed little evidence of the promised era of “personalized medicine”.  Direct-to-consumer genetic testing had made a big media splash but by and large, these tests provided little in the way of predictive information. 

Take type 2 diabetes: a family history combined with a body mass index was still far more reliable than a gene test.

So what was the impact of the human genome project?  I had asked myself a similar question about four years earlier. And rather more broadly, because the past decade had also seen the reading of a Noah’s ark of genomes – hundreds of animals, as well as plants and microbes. Rather than kicking the tyres and pulling things apart, biology was now a matter of reading DNA codes.  That had to have had a huge impact. But what exactly?

Even though I had written news reports and features about the latest genome findings, I could not really answer that question.  How, for instance, had the genome transformed medicine, agriculture and our understanding of evolution?

Hence my book: The Genome Generation.  It is a collection of seven stories distilled from my three and a half year trek through the trenches of genomics research.

Telling the stories, I believe, is the best way to answer the question of the impact of genomics.  But I can also give a glib answer or two.

For one, the genome has exploded the dogma that ossified the biological sciences, ever since Francis Crick first proclaimed “The Central Dogma” in 1957.  Namely that DNA makes RNA makes protein. As a genetics student I recall the phrase leaping out of the text book – odd and thunderous and intriguing. In science it is perilous to proclaim a dogma. 

Now we know that 98.5 per cent of our DNA does not make RNA to make protein. Most of it simply makes RNA and we are just beginning to fathom what this RNA does.  The lid has also come off on another dogma: that there was no place for life experience to influence genes, in other words Lamarckism.  Till recently it was considered a scientific joke – the idea that giraffes got longer necks because their ancestors reached for trees. Now it’s back on the radar screen of serious science.

The genome generation of scientists are also bold. That’s well-illustrated by the chapter, “Feeding nine billion,” which tells of the international effort, centred at CSIRO Plant industry in Canberra, to re-engineer the rice plant to deliver the same productivity as a corn plant.

The genome scientists also show humility in the face of a new universe of mystifying information. In the story on evolution, “Meet your ancestor”, researchers frankly admit they are at a loss to explain why the most primitive animals on the evolutionary tree end up having more genes than we do.

One thing I have no doubt of: the genome era is transforming our understanding of medicine, agriculture and all the biological disciplines at a breakneck pace.  It is my hope that The Genome Generation will help equip readers for what lies ahead.

Competition: To win one of three copies of Dr Finkel's book The Genome Generation answer this question: How many billion letters are in a human DNA code? Email us with your answer by 5pm (AEST), Thursday, 21 June 2012. Please include your name, address and alumni ID number with your entry. Correct entries will go into a random draw for one of the three books.