Book of life (2001)

e one two three up you go a physiotherapy session for Theo he's a happy six-year-old but his muscles are weak and wasting away he has a hereditary disease called spinal muscular atrophy known as SMA unless there's a breakthrough in treatment he'll always be in a wheelchair for his parents there seemed little chance of reversing the disease got any already but now that's changing I feel very very hopeful I you know I can see it in the distance as something that could well happen in five 10 years time and I think I'm realistic in that you know maybe Theo could have some sort of treatment which would enable him to wait there so he could stand and that would make a tremendous difference to his life and to our life this new optimism stems directly from the groundbreaking human genetic code the human genome or so-called Book of Life That's now being published for the first time wrong one wrong one Professor K Davis a leading researcher into muscular and nervous diseases is using the genetic code to study particular genes connected with SMA this could bring a cure much closer if we can actually explore five or six different Therapies in the next 10 years there's a possibility that might affect those children born today whereas without the human genome sequence that would never be possible inherited muscular and nervous diseases are among the first to benefit directly from mapping the human genetic code there'll soon be many others now researchers from several countries in the Human Genome Project who produce the draft blueprint are already working on the next steps to refine the draft and analyze how it could lead to breakthroughs in everyday medicine with treatment tailored to a patient's personal genetic makeup the world's largest medical research charity the welcome trust spent $300 million to fund the sang center near Cambridge in England here researchers contributed a third of the entire genome data Dr Michael Dexter heads the welcome trust what this is going to lead to is a whole new era of medicine it's truly individualized medicine where we'll be treating you as an individual for the right disease with the right medicine at the right dose at the right time to reach that stage the process of refining the human DNA sequence continues as vital as ever every one of the body's 100 trillion cells is tightly packed with DNA if unraveled each DNA molecule will be 6 ft long enough DNA in the whole body to stretch from the Earth to the Sun and back hundreds of times within the DNA combinations of four letters represent the base chemicals that determine our genes special machines read and analyze colorcoded sequences produced from DNA fragments afterwards giant computers reassemble all the fragments into the entire sequence of 3 billion letters in the DNA code the publication now of research outlining the whole DNA sequence is the very first overview of how human beings are made it brings together sequence information that's been made public every day as soon as it becomes available yes but I mean for S John susten director of the sang Center this free release of the data is vital all of this should be in the public domain it should not be something which is is is essentially based in profit making profit making May Come into it for particular applications but overall I think we need a public social welfare attitude to the use of this information and I believe that we have to drive medicine forward in this way with this research given freely to the world scientists can now begin to identify what genes go wrong when we develop a given disease among the target diseases Alzheimer's diabetes heart disease and cancer and actually this um Dr Mike Stratton is a leading cancer geneticist could be real could turn out to be the usual I would be extremely surprised if children being born today did not have a much better chance of surviving their cancer Than People of Our Generation I there will be a significant a major transformation of cancer treatment over the next 20 years push the Walker but for some the revolution in medicine can't come soon enough the's phys therapy helps him still to use his muscles just in case a cure for SMA is found behind the dry science of the now published research papers lie these most enduring of images hope for one life transformed perhaps Millions more to follow a result of the astonishing breakthrough in identifying the human genetic code that leg that's it you did it I'm concerned that we pay attention to the possibility of creating genetic genetic underclasses of of of excluding some people from from proper Medical Care on the grounds that oh they have bad genes you know they're not going to live very long or something we must not do that we must keep this thing open and we must not allow it to become subject to short-term Market forces in a way that will fundamentally diminish human rights for any individuals what we're able to tell people in these papers is how The genome looks for the very first time we have um sequence covering 90% of of the whole of the human genome we can now start to look into how it's organized we will be able to develop treatments more quickly and that so instead of those taking 20 years they'll now going to take 5 years to disprove or prove that they will work and that now brings that into the Realms of the lifetime of the child particularly in SMA for example so there are considerable number of genes which are involved in driving human cancers which are yet to be discovered and the aim of the cancer Genome Project is to implement systematic searches Gene by Gene through the human genome sequence to identify the genes that are abnormal areas such as diabetes heart disease many forms of cancer uh all undoubtedly do have a very important genetic component there are genes which contribute either to susceptibility uh or to the actual development and progress of such diseases uh and having knowledge of the involved will enable us to be much more precise uh about the implications for every individual even in their first or early visits to the clinic [Music] all [Music] get the yeah you should be able to see the results from that run about half an hour I would say over the last 12 months um I've come to believe that there's a lot of hope things are moving quickly o bugs live did you see the film well but guess what I've got a friend called PR he's got a room guard has he if somebody would help me get this feel back on it it that way look St