So the other day, I was generously given the chance to sit in the breezy hallway outside Lecture Center Seven at SUNY Albany and talk to a professor of microbiology. His title to be more precise is "Assitant Professor" which suprisingly does not mean at all what it sounds like. He is in fact the director of UAlbany's School of Public Health, and a lead researcher at the Gen*NYS*is Center for Excellence in Cancer Research. He told me that he approaches his research on a genomic level...meaning he plays around with the "regulatory code" trying to figure out how and why certain proteins binding in the replication of DNA can effect and cause mutations in genes, ultimately leading to cancer.

Fascinating stuff, really. I have no idea what most of what he said meant, but i did get the jist of it. Basically, we are really really really close to understanding the human genome so well that we will be able to pin point mutations that will cause cancer and other such diseases.

On the bright side, this is great. This knowledge will eventually lead to cures for cancer or whatever disease of your choice. But don't get the champagne out too fast. This ability to detect people's predisposition to developing diseases is a very very scary thought. This knowledge, in the wrong hands, could have consequences that will go beyond the simple issue of employment. I mean really, what company is going to hire someone who has a mutation on the seventh chromosome (completely chosen at random and there is no scientific basis for my choice, but it is to make a general point) which we know will lead to the development of lung cancer roughly at age 40? Probably not many.

This is not too terrible of a concern, however, because of the stringent doctor-patient confidentiality codes. For example, I know a woman who had cancer 10 years ago and was job searching five years ago. She was able to go through the job hunting process without telling her possible future employers that she was a cancer survivor. We'll see where all that goes. It seems now-a-days you can get just about anything on the internet.

The real scare is eugenics. Who is to say that it won't become law for everyone to have genetic testing done? You could argue the cost will prevent this from ever happening, but already it is only a few thousand dollars and anyone who is curious enough (and has a decent pocket book) can have their own genome mapped.

You may be saying that I am a lunatic, and I am, but not on the eugenics score. I advise anyone who does not beleive eugenics is still practiced in the United States go to Google and search "Norplant" and "eugenics." Nor plant is a drug, well more like a device, that is implanted in women that prevents them from getting pregnant for 5-7 years.

Anyway, if you do indeed Google this, you will see stories about state legislatures trying to pass laws suggesting that women on welfare also go on Norplant. There is also a somewhat famous story (and I hesitate to say famous because I had never heard about it until the afore mentioned researcher told me about it) in which a young woman in Alabama was charged with child abuse. She was a single mother of 5 and lived in poverty. The judge gave her the option of choosing to go to jail, or go on Norplant.

Stem cells have the potential to be life saving, but unless the knowledge is used responsibly, we could be in serious trouble, as my microbiologist researcher told me, "There will be human cloning, without a doubt, and I don't know if the ends justify the means."

Until tomorrow,
Colonel Brian

p.s. - sorry Dave I have yet to think of a good name, but one is on the way, I swear