Hungry. Should probably go wake Jasmin up. Poor girl says she's sick though. If I were to be a great cousin, I would go to Hougang Mall, grab a quick bite, and buy back dinner for her. But er, unfortunately, I kinda want to go to Compass Point to do a little shopping.
Some time was spent looking through the C: of my old computer after successfully establishing a remote connection between the computer and my laptop. It's akin to looking through a box of old photos, or going through a seldom-opened drawer. Memories come flooding back. Photos that I got rid off from my laptop, polytechnic schoolwork, projects, test notes, minutes from my time as secretary in my church's youth committee, old emails, chat logs, received files through ICQ. And of course, times when I had nice long hair :D
I even uncovered a report I wrote for an Appreciation of Life Sciences module I took in poly entitled "Gene Therapy : Hype or Hope?". Here's how I concluded the report:
6. Conclusion: Hype
Gene Therapy is still in its infancy with many unsolved difficulties - both technical and ethical. Before these issues are solved, it is but a glimmer of hope surrounded by layers of hype.
An article on ABCnews website titled “The future of gene therapy: what seems exotic now will soon be routine” is a classic example of how bad the hype surrounding gene therapy is.
The article is filled with exciting and confident claims by ambitious authorities on gene therapy. For instance, it claims that by the year 2020, “you may actually be able to avoid certain illnesses through gene therapy”. Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health even boasts that “[a list] will say your risk of diabetes is five times higher than average … risk of Alzheimer’s is actually five times lower. There’s one you don’t have to worry about”.
The irony behind the claims is that during the time of writing, researchers were confident that there are approximately 100,000 genes in the human body. Of course, we now know that the figure has been lowered to 30,000 – but then again, who knows when the figure would be revised again?
Although the sequencing of the human genome is without doubt a great accomplishment, there is still a lot to be done. The gaps in the ‘draft’ map have yet to be filled while interpretation of the genome is still in relatively early stages, far too early for people to be making inflated, almost unrealistic claims about the potential of gene therapy. If anything, it hinders the progress of researchers as the focus is lost.
Too much hype around gene therapy also carries the risk of having too much emphasis placed on genes as the determining factor in health and cause other environmental factors to be neglected. Taking all the above points into account, I conclude with saying that in order to reap the benefits of gene therapy, we have to draw a clear line between fact and hype and work towards benefiting the majority of the world’s population.
-Ok, time to wake the sleeping genius. Oh, talking about that, Janet did really really well for her exams too! 2As, 2B+ and 1 B-. There you've it folks, Janet Tang, smartest squid in Singapore waters =D
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