"Gattaca Corp. is an aerospace firm in the future. During this time society analyzes your DNA and determines where you belong in life. Ethan Hawke's character was born with a congenital heart condition which would cast him out of getting a chance to travel in space. So in turn he assumes the identity of an athlete who has genes that would allow him to achieve his dream of space travel." (Plot summary courtesy www.imdb.com, "Gattaca", 1997)
While you're being diligent about all the challenges that can affect your health in our modern times, don't forget to keep an eye out for your civil liberties along the way. This article in the Kansas City Star describes current activity around individualizing the genome mapping developments that reached a major completion milestone in 2003.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/13581453.htm
No question that the potential for individual benefits in medical application, nutrition strategies, education, etc. is enormous. With a team from Harvard Medical School going on record with their aim to reduce the cost of individual mapping from $10 million to $1000 by 2014, a timetable for debate on the implications for recording and using this information has also been set. Stay tuned.
"Under Church’s plan [George Church, Harvard Medical School], individual genomes, along with the names and photographs of the donors, will be placed in a public government database, where scientists and anyone else can see them. He acknowledged that such extraordinary openness carries risks as well as benefits. 'The prospect of this new type of personal information suddenly becoming widely available prompts worries about how it might be misused — by insurers, employers, friends, neighbors, commercial interests or criminals,' he acknowledged in Scientific American. Among the risks are exposing genetic flaws that could affect a person’s ability to get insurance or hold a job. A sequence might reveal a disease that lacks a current cure, a devastating finding for anyone. A curious or hostile person might uncover an individual’s hidden racial background. Church even speculated that someone with sufficient knowledge could use the data to 'make synthetic DNA corresponding to the volunteer and plant it at a crime scene.'"
Indeed. Might make an interesting plot for a movie.
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