Coding for Change: The Power of the Human Genome to Transform the American Health Insurance System

Abstract

While science does advance steadily over time, occasionally a scientific breakthrough occurs that does not merely augment current scientific explanations and understandings, but instead radically redirects the focus of the scientific inquiry, fundamentally reconfigures our conception of our world and community, and threatens our existing social and moral conventions. We are currently experiencing such a scientific revolution, precipitated by advances in decoding our genetic makeup. While the revolution began at least by 1952 with the discovery by James Watson and Francis Crick of the structure of the DNA molecule–the molecule that contains our genetic information–the pace of the revolution has accelerated most rapidly in the last ten years. The engine for this change is the Human Genome Project.