Genomics Quotes

“Pilots used to fly planes manually, but now they operate a dashboard with the help of computers. This has made flying safer and improved the industry.
Healthcare can benefit from the same type of approach, with physicians practicing medicine with the help of data, dashboards, and AI. This will improve
the quality of care they provide and make their jobs easier and more efficient”
― Ronald M. Razmi, AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare - A Guide for Users, Buyers, Builders, and Investors

“The issue of reimbursement by payers is an important factor that should be discussed. Is it possible that if radiologists use AI to read scans, they’ll receive less reimbursement? Or to approach this from the other angle, if payers are reimbursing for the use of AI, will they pay radiologists less as a result? My discussions with insurance executives have shown that they don’t think this is likely. If the use of these technologies will improve patient outcomes and lead to fewer errors, there are benefits to them that will motivate executives to pay for them in addition to radiologists’ reading fees.”
― Ronald M. Razmi, AI Doctor: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare - A Guide for Users, Buyers, Builders, and Investors

“When scientists underestimate complexity, they fall prey to the perils of unintended consequences. The parables of such scientific overreach are well-known: foreign animals, introduced to control pests, become pests in their own right; the raising of smokestacks, meant to alleviate urban pollution, releases particulate effluents higher in the air and exacerbates pollution; stimulating blood formation, meant to prevent heart attacks, thickens the blood and results in an increased risk of blood clots in the heart.

But when nonscientists overestimate [italicized, sic] complexity- 'No one can possibly crack this [italicized, sic] code" - they fall into the trap of unanticipated consequences. In the early 1950s , a common trope among some biologists was that the genetic code would be so context dependent- so utterly determined by a particular cell in a particular organism and so horribly convoluted- that deciphering it would be impossible. The truth turned out to be quite the opposite: just one molecule carries the code, and just one code pervades the biological world. If we know the code, we can intentionally alter it in organisms, and ultimately in humans. Similarly, in the 1960s, many doubted that gene-cloning technologies could so easily shuttle genes between species. by 1980, making a mammalian protein in a bacterial cell, or a bacterial protein in a mammalian cell, was not just feasible, it was in Berg's words, rather "ridiculously simple." Species were specious. "Being natural" was often "just a pose.”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History

“We are living in a golden age of genetic research, with new technologies permitting the easy collection of genetic data from millions upon millions of people and the rapid development of new statistical methodologies for analyzing it. But it is not enough to just produce new genetic knowledge. As this research leaves the ivory tower and disseminates through the public, it is essential for scientists and the public to grapple with what this research means about human identity and equality. Far too often, however, this essential task of meaning-making is being abdicated to the most extreme and hate-filled voices. As Eric Turkheimer, Dick Nisbett, and I warned:

If people with progressive political values, who reject claims of genetic determinism and pseudoscientific racialist speculation, abdicate their responsibility to engage with the science of human abilities and the genetics of human behavior, the field will come to be dominated by those who do not share those values.”
― Kathryn Paige Harden, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality

“In nature, ecosystems consist of fauna and flora, climatic characteristics, soil conditions, geologic features, and a host of other interacting influences. Similarly, the precision medicine ecosystem is made of many interacting components, including patients, clinicians, researchers, laboratory services, CDS software, genomic databases, smartphones, servers, claims data, mobile apps, biobanks to store clinical specimens, and EHRs. EHRs need to serve as gateways to this ecosystem. And for the EHR to become an effective conduit, it needs a way to organize these diverse sources in a way that lets clinicians and patients make more effective diagnostic and treatment decisions.”
― Paul Cerrato, Realizing the Promise of Precision Medicine: The Role of Patient Data, Mobile Technology, and Consumer Engagement

“Far from being a homogenous "Big Science," biotechnology is highly diversified and heterogeneous. "The" human genome is not a single database, but a cluster of semi-autonomous databases housed at universities, biotech companies, and independent research institutes. In fact, because any computer user can, if he or she wishes, download the entire genome, "the" human genome is probably more distributed than we can guess.

From: "Open source DNA and Bioinformatic Bodies" by Eugene Thacker”
― Eduardo Kac, Signs of Life: Bio Art And Beyond

“Ever twisting, turning, and at war with itself and external invaders, DNA provides the fuel for evolution’s changes. Ten percent of our genome is made up of ancient viruses, and at least another 60 percent consists of repeated elements made by jumping genes gone wild. Only 2 percent is made up of our own genes. With cells and genetic material of different species merging and genes continually duplicating and repurposing, life’s history flows more like a braided and meandering river than a straight channel.”
― Neil Shubin, Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA

“Genomics has transformed the biological sciences. From epidemiology and medicine to evolution and forensics, the ability to determine an organism’s complete genetic makeup has changed the way science is done and the questions that can be asked of it. Far and away the most celebrated achievement of genomics is the Human Genome Project, a technologically challenging endeavour that took thousands of scientists around the world thirteen years and ~US$3 billion to complete. In 2000, American President William Clinton referred to the resulting genome sequence as ‘the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind.’ Important though it was, this ‘map’ was a low-resolution first pass—a beginning not an endpoint. As of this writing, thousands of human genomes have been sequenced, the primary goals being to better understand our biology in health and disease, and to ‘personalize’ medicine. Sequencing a human genome now takes only a few days and costs as little as US$1,000. The genomes of simple bacteria and viruses can be sequenced in a matter of hours on a device that fits in the palm of your hand. The information is being used in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.”
― John M. Archibald, Genomics: A Very Short Introduction

“The shift of chemistry’s attention to the processes of life has come at a time when the traditional branches of chemistry—organic, inorganic, and physical—have reached a stage of considerable maturity and are ready to tackle the awesomely complex network of processes going on inside organisms: human bodies in particular. The approach to the treatment, more importantly the prevention, of disease has been put on a rational basis by the discoveries that chemists continue to make. If you plan to enter this field, then genomics and proteomics will turn out to be of crucial importance to your work. This is truly a region of chemistry where you can feel confident about standing on the shoulders of the giants who have preceded you and know that you are attacking disease at its roots.”
― Peter Atkins, Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction