What we do with genomes

Genetic engineering

• Any genetically modified organism not just food
• We are modifying human embryos (not allowing to go to term)
  • Correct disease
• Inserting DNA from other organism to…
  • acheive desired traits
  • avoid impact of disease / pest
• Roundup ready

Microbiomes

• Human microbiome impacts our immune system, affects autoimmune disease, obesity, autism
• We have tried to avoid / eliminate microorganisms
  • But they aren’t necessarily pathogenic

Personalized genomic medicine

• Certain treatments work better depend on their genetics
• Predict disease risk (if we know which alleles you have)
• Potentially reduce mortality
• Arthritis, asthma, etc. medicines often don’t work
  • if we understand genetic makeup, maybe able to know which medicine works for whom
• A single disease can have different types with different treatments
  • Need to know genetic type to tailor treatment

Individual identification / ancestry

• Individual data (variants) to determine ancestry
• DNA can suggest your similarity to different populations

Evolution

• Observe trends in changes in allele frequency
• Genome structure can change
• See trends in how organisms change