The mapping of the human genome has revealed the future of a revolution in genetic medicine which can transform our health prospects. As populations grow and people's expectations of their health increase, the world will be more and more in need of the kind of solutions that biotechnology can offer. Biotechnology can deliver better, more effective medicines. It can improve food production, including in the developing world. It can help to clean up our environment.
Biotechnology offers the chance to change medicine forever.
To move from diagnose and treat to detect and prevent. While disease and illness will always be with us, we will in future be able to tackle many diseases even before they've had a chance to manifest themselves. Over the next ten to twenty years, biotechnology will offer us ways of heading off the main killers in societies such as Britain. Causes of death as familiar to our generation as pneumonia, diptheria and small pox were to our ancestors. Biotechnology is also a potent new weapon against degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.