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Sidebar. Early on, some Human Genome Project researchers insisted that only a single person needed to be sequenced as a template for all others. Question: With respect to this idea, where do you stand?. A. Strongly agree B. Agree C. Not sure D. Disagree E. Strongly disagree. Some Context.
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Sidebar • Early on, some Human Genome Project researchers insisted that only a single person needed to be sequenced as a template for all others
Question: With respect to this idea, where do you stand? • A. Strongly agree • B. Agree • C. Not sure • D. Disagree • E. Strongly disagree
Some Context • Humans share over 99% of their genes in common • All people are pretty much the same • Avoids the bug-a-boo of race seen in Eugenics movements • Dr. Robert Swartz (Tufts University), “Race is a social construct not a scientific classification.”
More Context • Humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees and almost two-thirds of our genes with drosophila fruit flies
Even More Context • Dr. M. Anne Spence, University of California, Irvine; on HGP’s ethics committee • Reported that there was a widely shared feeling that gender ought not to matter and should be ignored in initial sequencing • Most drug research carried out on white, middle-aged men • People, especially women, often have radically different responses to the same medicines
Question: With respect to this idea, where do you stand now? • A. Strongly agree • B. Agree • C. Not sure • D. Disagree • E. Strongly disagree
The Devil’s in the Details • Yes, humans are very similar to each other (99%) • Highly significant small differences, though • Dr. Neil Risch (Lamond Distinguished Professor and director of the Institute for Human Genetics at University of California, San Francisco): “What we are going to find is precisely that the other percent plays a role in determining why one person gets schizophrenia or diabetes while another doesn’t, why one person responds well to a drug while another can’t tolerate it.”