Today humankind is witnessing a revolution,
a revolution in science that will radically transform all our lives.
Michio Kaku:
“I believe that we are making the historic transition from the Age of Scientific
Discovery to the Age of Scientific Mastery, an age in which we’ll be
able to determine the destiny of life itself.”
In the last century, we unlocked the
basic code of life. Now we are beginning to master it with an unprecedented
power. This is the bio-molecular revolution. It promises the almost God-liked ability
to manipulate life at the most fundamental level.
It will enable us to grow human organs
in laboratories, change our genetic heritage, enhance our abilities, even shape
the evolution of mankind.
Michio Kaku:
“We are making the transition from being passive observers to the dance of nature
to being active choreographers of nature. We are entering an era of unparallel possibilities
which raises profound questions about who we are and how we will live. In this
program I will show you how we hold the future of humanity in our hands.”
I'm on my way to a doctor's appointment,
but the doctor won’t be checking my medical history. He is about to diagnose my
medical future. The scientific advances of the 20th century have
already improved the way we diagnose and treat disease. But the biotech
revolution will give us even greater control over our health. The first stage
of our mastery of life will allow us to eliminate many diseases, and perhaps
prolong our lives by decades or even longer.
Michio Kaku:
“Today you can go to the doctor's office, get a physical exam, get a clean on
our health, walk off the door, and drop dead. That’s because we're not born
with an owner's manual for our body. Now, that's funny because I have an
owner’s manual for my laptop, my VCR, my PC - everything - except one for me. But
in the future, we’ll all have a CD-rom with all our genes on it - our owner’s
manual. And today, I’m gonna take the first step towards getting my owner’s
manual.”
I have my appointment with Doctor Harry
Austern, one of the medics at the forefront of the new revolution and medicine.
He's going to map my genes.
Dr. Harry Austern
“I’d like to take some information from you right now about your personal
health - any significant medical history that you've had, medications that you
may be taking right now.”
Michio Kaku: “I’m in good health. I’ve lots of energy and lots
of optimism. On my parents’ side, they all live to be in their mid 80s. And now,
of course, they’re getting on in years, so my father passed away probably because
of Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Harry Austern:
“And how old was he when he passed away?”
Michio Kaku: “About 85. And my mother is about eighty five
now, and she has a severe case of Alzheimer’s. It's so sad. She can’t recognize
me. She can’t recognize any of her kids. And it's such a…it’s such a… It’s so unfair.
They struggled all their life for their golden years, and then they lose
everything.”
A simple blood test will reveal whether
I carry a risk gene for Alzheimer’s, or for heart disease, mental illness,
diabetes. Indeed, all the major diseases. Soon genetic screening to map out our
entire medical future will be as routine as checking our blood pressure. My own
journey into my personal future has begun.
Michio Kaku:
“On one hand, I’m a scientist, and I say to myself we're gonna get at the truth.
I mean what's in my genome. I’m all in favor of that. But the other side of me
says wait a minute. This could be a Pandora's box because all of us, as I
understand, have about six or so genes that are pretty screwed up - some of them
lethal. And so, in some sense, I'm looking at the side of me that I've never
seen before, a side that has potential medical problems lurking there. So, but
in the mean, the scientist side of me says go for it.”
Dr. Harry Austern:
“We do really want to be respectful of your privacy as well as the privacy of
your relatives in any point upon the way of course. If we’re getting into
territory that you feel uncomfortable for you, then we will just move on from there.
So you will have less genome and genometric analysis. And then, based on this, you
are, they said to be, at 20 percent risk for this and 10 percent risk for that.
You know, and 80 percent risk for a third thing.”
Screening my personal genetic makeup, indeed,
the bio-molecular revolution itself
would
have been impossible without the last great scientific project of the 20th century - the
human genome project.
BBC News:
“Good evening it's taken ten years. It's cost billions of pounds, and the
result is a giant leap forward in our understanding of the human body. Scientists
have now produced the first draft of the human genetic code. They say it's a milestone in human history
because it could eventually eliminate many diseases.”
Bill Clinton:
“We’re here to celebrate the completion of the first survey for the entire
human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever
produced by humankind. More than a thousand researches across six nations have
revealed nearly all three billion letters of our miraculous genetic code.”
When the molecular structure of DNA was
a rival in 1953, who could have conceived that would lead so rapidly to this
great book of life - an encyclopedia of every one of the genes that make us who
we are?
Dr. Francis Collins:
“It’s hard for people to believe who didn't live through it that when the genome
project got started in 1990, the majority of the scientific community were
deeply skeptical and even opposed. They didn't think it could be done. And certainly
not in the fifteen year timetable that was set. And they weren't being just sour. There was no technology on the table that was going to
be able to do this. It was sort of a leap of faith to imagine that technology,
if encouraged, would come along. And ultimately, when it began to work, the
actual sequencing of the human genome, 90 percent of it got done in about 18
months.”
Michio Kaku:
“Once in a generation, a scientific breakthrough changes the entire scientific
landscape. At the 1940s, it was the Manhattan Project which helped open up the
secrets of the Adam. In the 1960s, it was the race to the moon which opened up
space travel. And now is the human genome project which is giving us a
blueprint for life. I'd like to divide the history of medicine into two eras, BG
and AG, Before the Genome and After the Genome.”
To me the human genome project marks the
transition from the age of discovery to the age of mastery. Having unraveled
the fundamental code of our biology, the stage is set for us to manipulate it. A
bio-molecular revolution has begun.
The bio-molecular revolution is changing
everything including modern medicine.
Medicine
has gone through at least three basic stages. In the first stage, we had the
introduction of the germ theory, better sanitation, a modern sewage system. In the
second stage we had antibiotics, vaccination, modern surgery. But the third
stage is the most profound of all, genetic medicine.
Bill Clinton: “Genome science will have a real impact on all our lives and, even more,
on the lives of our children.”
