WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE PANEL

BRENT ERVIN April 6, 2014

What I learned from the panel is that technology is allowing us to make huge advances in the
world of Bioinformatics. We went from sequencing 10,000 base pairs per second to 50 million per
second. With these advances the goal of healthcare and in cancer patients specifically, they might be
able to conduct genome scans so that doctors can tailor medicine regimens to individual patient needs
rather than the broad application that is in use today. The genome scans can also allow us to look at
certain susceptibilities to specific diseases we have a higher probability of acquiring so that we can make
lifestyle changes to give us a better chance of thwarting them off. With that, there are ethical issues
that have to be taken into consideration, such as do you even want to know or if its your child do you
tell them. Basically, someone other than the individual being sequenced knowing that information and
what they do with it.
In the world of plant genetics our population is rapidly expanding and in order to feed them we
have to increase our crop fields and improve how we do our plant breeding systems. Genomic
technologies will hopefully drive another green revolution. Currently, there have been 50+ plants
sequenced to get a better idea of how to improve breeding practices. The hope in accomplishing that is
through natural variation. The diversity across plants is what scientists plan to incorporate in current
breeding practices. Technology using genotyping by sequencing allows scientists to figure out how
plants might breed when mixed with one another but at mass levels, thousands at a time.
Dr. Foder and his team are trying to attack disease by examining bacteria and gene
characteristics through fecal matter. Again, the goal is looking by looking at this bacteria we can look at
resistance to certain diseases and narrow it down to make informed decisions based on data and take
whatever medication to combat the specific aspect of disease rather than trying to take an all-
encompassing drug which parts of you may not need or can be damaging to your body or your childs
body.
Lastly, they are looking at the functions of proteins and how they work. (Dr.) Anthony (I only
caught his first name) is trying to understand what is conserved across certain enzymes to make them
work or not work. In the case of beta lactamase when it breaks down antibiotics, why does it break
down all of one but only some of another? The goal being if they can identify why superbugs have
developed their resistance, then maybe they can develop therapies to counter that resistance.