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Citizens of Kuwait must now register their DNA with the government or face hefty fines

In a bold and controversial move, Kuwait has just passed a new law that makes it mandatory to register your DNA with the government. Starting soon, the 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents of Kuwait will have to enter their individual DNA profiles into a government database.

Since the program is being mandated, the government of Kuwait will spend the equivalent of about $400 million to subsidize the DNA testing and management. Refusal to comply or DNA tampering could result in fines as high as $33,000, and even time in prison.

In January, the biotech company Genentech reportedly committed $10 million for access to the DNA of 3,000 Parkinson’s patients and their families. A week later, Pfizer made a similar deal for the genomes of 5,000 people with lupus.

A trove of data could give scientists the tools they need to develop gene-specific drug therapies for certain diseases. “We are hoping to ultimately develop Parkinson’s medicines, for example, that actually modify the disease as opposed to just treating symptoms,”

“this has the possibility of not only helping us find new cures, but it also helps us create a genuine health care system as opposed to just a disease care system.”

The prospect of genetically much altered future generations is no longer in the distant science fiction future but rather in the "some of the people reading this will live to see it on large scale" future.

Some more competitive governments might mandate genetic editing to put a floor on intelligence. Want a first class high tech economy? Allow no kid below 120 IQ. The first government to do that will have the highest per capita income economy in the world 50 years later if not much sooner.

My expectation is that differences in regulatory response to germ line genetic engineering technologies will cause the populations of the world's various countries to diverge in a variety of ways that will be immediately visibl

Все генетические заболевания, онкология, старение — все это так или иначе связано с повреждениями в ДНК, которые неизбежно возникают при репликации, и накапливаются в течение жизни. А система репарации ДНК, за исследование которой дали премию, — это то, что позволяет с такими повреждениями бороться.

Медицинские перспективы этих открытий в том, что они дают возможность создания лекарств против болезней, связанных с нарушениями и повреждениями в ДНК.

The Obama administration has called for a new era of "personalized medicine," which relies on collecting a vast amount of genetic information from American volunteers to bolster the development of genetics-based treatment.

. Medical schools did not pay much heed to genetics until relatively recently

Studies have also found that most patients don't actually change their behavior for the better once they learn about a genetic predisposition to a disease. But he also argues that primary care physicians shouldn't simply ignore genetics.

Ever wonder why some fortunate people eat chips, don’t exercise, and still don’t get clogged arteries? It could be because they’ve got lucky genes.

Now Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is bankrolling a startup company that plans to use gene editing to spread fortunate DNA variations with “one-time” injections of the gene-editing tool CRISPR.

Right now, to avoid heart disease you can pop statin pills, change your diet, and jump on an exercise bike. But people have a hard time sticking with it. The scientists at Verve think if they can install lucky genes in your body, you may not have to. Initially, Kathiresan says, the gene-editing treatment could be used on adults who have actually had a heart attack and want to avoid a second one.