What's the most practical use of biology?
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What's the most practical use of biology?
I intend to do several threads like this one on different branches of science. In the meantime, we can explore this one.
PhilX
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Re: What's the most practical use of biology?
A few years ago I did coursework in medical information management, and I did a paper on kidney function. My research included an article about attempts to isolate in the human genome the allele(s) for polycystic kidney disease. The geneticists concluded that although the disease clearly involved about 2 dozen sequences across a couple of different chromosomes, how variation in these sequences actually manifested for the disease was unsolvable due to the complex interrelationships of these sequences with the rest of the human genome.
So I don't think we're going to be seeing genetic surgery covered by insurance policies anytime soon.
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