21st Century, the Genetic Revolution

Well, finally received the transcript for Biomedical degree, and I got a 2nd upper class, heh.
The Industrial revolution in the 19th century has made mega machines and super tall buildings possible. Digital (computer) revolution in the 20th century, changes the way we live and interact with the use of computers. In the 21st century, with the decoding of the human genome completed in 2003, there is a paradigm shift in prolonging life expectancy, maintaining youth and finding cures for genetic diseases. Human life expectancy has been increasing due to better food and medicines, 100 years ago, the average human life is about 50 years old, and the present life expectancy is about 80 years old, an increase in 30 years. But the additional 20 years seems to be illusionary, because normal organs deteriorated, and succumb to infection. So what would you do with worn out parts, you probably want to replace it, and break through in genetic engineering could allow you to grow your own organ or replace with artificial organs. Imagine a day where an injection is all you need to reduce the chances of getting cancer. This idea may seems far fetch, the medical technology for gene therapy are well in place and drugs that are tailor made to work “best” for your DNA.

While the common practice to screen for genetic defects in the fetus, and instead of deciding to abort the fetus with genetic defect for example immune disease ADA. Gene splicing technology allow inserting normal DNA to aid missing or defective genes, thus even when both parent has defective genes, their newborn will not be affected with such defects. (This is just a description of gene therapy, neither me nor my parents have such genes)

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