Following the genomic road map
OK, we’re part Neanderthal, and not that much different from chimpanzees after all. We also know that some drugs won’t work on my cancer, even though they might work on yours. And, if you want to find out what your DNA has been saying behind your back, the price of having your personal genome decoded is dropping like a stone. The map of the human genome, completed in 2001, has wowed scientists in the years since, even if the scale of its impact has not matched some of the early predictions surrounding the project. Eric Lander, a leader of the Human Genome Project, said Tuesday (Feb. 22) that he has been surprised at the pace of advances stemming from the project, which has been likened to “biology’s moon-shot.” “This has gone so much faster than I ever imagined,” said Lander, president and director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and professor of...