Sudden fall in prices for image of your genetic make-up
In a few years time, mapping a person’s genome may cost SEK 5,000. This can be compared with today’s cost of SEK 250,000 and the same mapping just a few years ago, cost around SEK 10 million. The low cost means that in the long term it will become considerably easier to treat diseases.
Joakim Lundeberg is a gene researcher at KTH, who relates the news of the future, heavily reduced price.
For a number of years, he has been working with genetic engineering and mapping the human genome, a technology which is now facing a commercial breakthrough.
“In the near future, it means that a DNA analysis can be carried out on a routine basis within the healthcare services. What we are working on right at the moment is putting together all of the technical parts to form one working unit, and this we should resolve within the next two years,” says Joakim Lundeberg.
Consequently, it will become possible to map disease genes in patients, with the production of a more efficient treatment as a result.
“For example, it will be possible to compare two patient groups, one that has a particular disease and one that does not have it. Then an analysis will be carried out which will find the lowest common denominator which distinguishes the two,” says Joakim Lundeberg.
Joakim Lundederg is sceptical about the genetic tests that have been sold over the Internet for the equivalent of SEK 6,000 over the past few years, since the mapping is incomplete.
“To some extent it is a confidence trick, as it is selected determined positions in the genome that are extracted. It can be performed quickly, but at the same time it is a mapping of a one millionth part of the genome. What is then sold, is a rough estimation of different disease risks,” says Joakim Lundeberg.
The increased availability of information about the various diseases a person can be affected by not only means a boost for the healthcare industry, it also places greater demands on ethics and confidentiality. And these are issues which Joakim Lundeberg and other researchers throughout the world are working intensively on right at the moment.
“How the vast amount of information, and in particular the security that surrounds it, is to be handled are things we are working actively on,” says Joakim Lundeberg.
As for as the individual’s capacity to absorb and deal with the information about the risks of various diseases, Joakim Lundeberg believes that in the future there will be some form of consensus.
“Some form of agreement on the way to relate to the information and knowledge will evolve,” he says.
For more information, contact Joakim Lundeberg at joakiml@biotech.kth.se or ring 08 - 55 37 83 27.
Peter Larsson