We hear a lot about how genetic research is likely to raise difficult societal issues, by providing disturbing predictions about who is likely to develop serious illness, for example. Such apprehensions are not groundless. We will indeed for some years to come be able to learn a lot about our genetic fate while having, in many cases, limited power to avert it. But this state of affairs stems from the aspect of genes that concerns why like begets like, from their role as determinants of inheritance. The future of medicine will, rather, emerge from genes considered as fundamental components of our anatomy that can control cells.
Anatomic genomics holds the key to curing illness and repairing bodies.
The reading public has in recent months been bombarded with dispatches not only about sequencing the genome and the travails of gene therapy, but also about experimental progress with stem cells. The practical implications of this progress do indeed seem to justify the attention being lavished on it, although many crucial questions are still being addressed. Researchers have isolated human stem cells that have a truly remarkable ability to transform into a wide variety of types. Moreover, cells with comparable flexibility may be obtainable from adult tissues. These discoveries will be synergistic with the use of human genes, proteins, and antibodies identified through anatomic genomics, and will constitute a second wave of regenerative medicine.