CBN News - Unlocking the Human Code

By Pamela Newby CBN News

Two teams of scientists in London have completed a rough draft of the human genetic code, nature's instructions for making and maintaining human beings, in what is being called the biggest medical breakthrough of the century.

President Clinton, joined at the White House announcement Monday by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who appeared by satellite transmission, hailed completion of the work ``a day for the ages'' after a 10-year race that cost billions.

Its importance to gains in human knowledge is being compared to the development of the printing press -- or the equivalent in medicine of a moon landing. Scientists say whole libraries of new knowledge now await medical researchers.

The goal of the ten-year project that's been underway in four countries is to correctly sequence 3.1 billion DNA subunits that make up what is called the human genome, matched correctly to 23 pairs of human chromosomes.

It may sound like something from a sci-fi thriller, but the overall purpose is to decode the human genetic pattern.

"I think what people tend to forget is that all drugs are based on genes. When a gene goes bad, we need a drug to counteract the effect," says Craig Rosen, who helps head up research and development for the Human Genome Sciences Company.

What that means is human genome research is expected to lead to the development of new drugs, advanced treatments, and early diagnosis of genetically related diseases that could soon seem miraculous.

"If you at birth are able to take cell cultures of your stem cells and put them on the shelf, so to speak, with cryogenics -- frozen -- ultimate stasis," adds Graham Molitor, vice president and legal counsel of the World Future Society. "Now let's say you've reached age 85 and you need a new heart. All you have to do is take the stem cells and redirect them to create a new heart."

Such developments could be well down the road, but Molitor warns that in the near term, these medical possibilities will also pose numerous moral and ethical questions from creating designer babies to aborting genetically defective fetuses.


"Once we have the blueprint of life in hand, I think the opportunity to be god-like or creator-like is with us, and that's an awesome kind of power," he says.

This power is expected to forever change the medical landscape of human health care.