Instead of giving clotting factors to hemophiliacs, doctors might fix a patient's flawed genes as though changing a broken gasket on a car. It will range from a better understanding of basic biology to new diagnostic tests for the major health problems to new cures for disease. The genome is a map of the cell's inner workings, of the chemicals that tell it how to behave. This map may one day allow researchers to figure out how cells work and how they can be altered to prevent and treat illness. But getting there will be a massive project.
Wayward genes can produce flawed proteins that cause disease.
Devising those cures is the work of the next 20 or 30 years. Julie Louviere had beaten breast cancer, but three years ago, she found herself hospitalized again with cancer of the bones and liver. A new drug called Herceptin inhibits the extra protein. She said that 18 months of Herceptin, combined with chemotherapy, have shrunk or eliminated many of her liver tumors. There are bound to be more successes like Herceptin, which was developed before scientists had much of the human genome in hand.