Scientists and researchers have been asking themselves an important question: Is it a good to sequence everyone’s genome?
In recent times, two experts in genome sequencing have taken opposing positions to this questions.
Dr. John Burn, a Professor from the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, believes that it is beneficial to do so since it provides valuable information in preventing, diagnosing and treating disease. Yet he also admits that “we have to understand our limitations.
He goes on to say that if genome sequencing is linked to clinical outcomes, it will impact drug discovery and development in a profound manner but will also radically change the response to epidemics across the world.
However, Frances Flinter, from Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London, has an opposing view. She believes that since genome sequencing is an ethically complex area, it isn’t justified to move in a new direction just because we have the technology to do so at our disposal.
While she supports the government’s decision to sequence the genomes of 100,000 patients with rare diseases and cancer, she believes that sequencing the genomes of every person is a very different thing altogether. Moreover, she also believes that gaining a meaningful interpretation of the data that can be collected in doing so is impossible.
She also warns that the sequencing of everyone’s genomes could result in the private sector seeing an opportunity to market unnecessary screening which is just as damaging to inform patients that they are far more susceptible to common diseases, thanks to the information received from genome sequencing.
Finally, she concludes that the data from genome sequencing from healthy individual would offer nothing clinically, since the information obtained is usually meaningless.