Knowledge is power. Expanding our knowledge of humanity’s basic components will potentially help medical professionals understand and cope with a variety of biological enemies, such as cancer and detrimental genetic conditions. Further, deeper understanding of the disease processes at the level of molecular biology may determine new therapeutic procedures. This is the greatest benefit that can come from increased knowledge of the human genome…

Molecular Medicine:

•Improved diagnosis of disease
•Earlier detection of genetic predispositions to disease
•Rational drug design
•Gene therapy and control systems for drugs
•Pharmacogenomics “custom drugs”

Technology and resources promoted by the Human Genome Project are starting to have profound impacts on biomedical research and promise to revolutionize the wider spectrum of biological research and clinical medicine. Increasingly detailed genome maps have aided researchers seeking genes associated with dozens of genetic conditions, including myotonic dystrophy, fragile X syndrome, neurofibromatosis types 1 and 2, inherited colon cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and familial breast cancer.

On the horizon is a new era of molecular medicine characterized less by treating symptoms and more by looking to the most fundamental causes of disease. Rapid and more specific diagnostic tests will make possible earlier treatment of countless maladies. Medical researchers also will be able to devise novel therapeutic regimens based on new classes of drugs, immunotherapy techniques, avoidance of environmental conditions that may trigger disease, and possible augmentation or even replacement of defective genes through gene therapy.