Have you seen the movie Gattaca? People can easily check someone’s DNA information by going to a public service terminal and requesting that information. Well, it seems that kind of future is almost upon us. At the Web 2.0 Summit, Craig Venter, a biologist working on projects having to do with gene sequencing, said it won’t be long before DNA sequencing becomes part of a standard medical test. What was a biologist doing at a Web 2.0 conference? Well, he was interviewed by Tim O’Reilly on stage, in the effort to show how close biology and information science are tied together, and have been for some time. Mr. Venter supports genetic transparency and predicts a future in which someone can easily find your DNA information on search engines or “Google a date’s DNA”. People will be able to see whether someone they are thinking about getting involved with has a hereditary disease or other genetically induced health anomaly that may have a negative impact on offspring.

Is this the kind of future we are aiming for as a global society? I am not sure this is the right way to go, although movies are usually pretty good in showing things that will come to pass in the future, so this may actually become reality. On one side, it may be useful to know your potential partner is carrying DNA code that may cause health or other problems for offspring, but on the other hand there are other factors in survival, especially in the human society.

Share This