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He writes about the case of Adam Lanza,
the Sandy Hook Elementary School killer
whose 2012 shooting spree caused the
deaths of 27 people. There were reports that
researchers at the University of Connecticut
were analysing his DNA in a bid to see if
evil is in our genes. The results haven’t been
made public and most scientists believe this
search for a common genetic factor for mass
murder is nothing but wishful thinking.
But what if we did discover statisticallysignificant differences in the DNA of killers?
“Would we then screen for this genotype in
newborns?” asks Rutherford. “If a person
had 99.999% of the same genotype as
Lanza, would we put them on a watch list?”
DNA is not destiny, stresses Rutherford,
and no one will ever find a gene for evil
or genius because it doesn’t exist. What is
more likely is that many slight differences in
many genes, combined with an individual’s
environment and experiences, will affect
the likelihood of particular characteristics.
“A NEW PSEUDOSCIENCE”
Rutherford calls the deterministic version of
genetics “a new phrenology” – phrenology
was a pseudoscience popular in the 19th
century that linked the shapes of people’s
skulls with character traits. His point is that
there is still much we don’t know. Even
cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease consid-
ered to be genetically straightforward, has
been found to be more complex than origi-
nally thought, with genetic modifiers that
change the severity of symptoms.
“Geneticists are dealing with the longest,most complicated coded message ever writ-
ten about the most complicated entity ever
to have existed,” he says. He’s talking about
the human genome, which he says is the
unique history of who you are and how you
came to be. But every individual genome
also carries the history of our species, he
says, including births, deaths, disease, war,
famine, migration and a lot of sex.
But Rutherford remains critical of theconsumer genetics business – com-
panies such as 23andMe that offer
affordable saliva testing to tell you
everything from your ancestral origins
to your genetic health risk factors and
whether you are a carrier for certain
hereditary conditions.
Having had his saliva analysed by
23andMe and another service, BritainsDNA,
Rutherford now knows he has wet earwax
and a 28% chance of having blond hair (he
doesn’t), that 2.7% of his genome is of a
Neanderthal origin and that he has a geno-
type that puts him at higher risk than most
people of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
“That doesn’t mean I will get Alzheimer’s
disease; it means that the chance I will is
slightly higher than most people. Similarly,
if you don’t have that genotype, you are not
immune to Alzheimer’s. These, it cannot be
stated enough, are calculations of odds, not
of destiny.”There was one result from having his
genome explored that Rutherford did find
helpful – it turns out he is not a carrier of an
allele for a lung disease that affects his wife’s
family, which means there is less chance of
his children suffering from it or passing it
on, and this came as a relief.THE DRUGS NOW WORK
Although the science is wide open to mis-
interpretation, there is no denying the
potential genomics has to change so many
aspects of our lives for the better.
For instance, take the treatment of depres-
sion – an illness that has been cited as the
second-leading cause of health loss in New
Zealand. Lancaster says that about 50% of
people find the medication they take doesn’t
work for them. There are SNP patterns that
can identify how people metabolise drugs.
Those who metabolise them extremelyrapidly simply don’t get enough of the
drug in their system to manage their depres-
sion. In the brave new world of personalised
medicine, a patient will be provided with
the right drug in the right dose at the right
time, and the problem will be sorted.
Meanwhile, the field of reproductive
medicine is already benefiting from new
genetic-screening technologies. Those
having IVF treatment in New Zealand now
have the option of a test that reduces the
chances of miscarriage and increases the
likelihood of a healthy baby. Pre-implanta-
tion genetic screening examines embryos
and selects those with the correct number
of chromosomes.
And in the future, according to medical
informaticist Michael Gillam, we will be
able to get our full human genome – plus
our microbiome – simply by brushing our
teeth with a diagnostic toothbrush. The first
complete human genome required a decade
of work by hundreds of scientists and cost
about $3 billion by the time it was published
in 2001. Gillam told Nine to Noon’s Kathryn
Ryan that as computers have got better at
crunching through all that data, the price
has fallen dramatically, and he predicts
that within five years it will be possible to
sequence an entire human genome for less
than the cost of getting a pizza delivered.
“We might be able to diagnose pneumo-
nia or bronchitis or croup or any number of
other respiratory illnesses. Your toothbrush
could essentially diagnose you before your
doctor. That’s just because the power of
computation keeps growing and the cost
is going down,” he said.
When the Human Genome Project
succeeded, it was hailed by President Bill
Clinton as having the potential to revo-
lutionise the diagnosis, prevention and
treatment of most, if not all, human dis-
eases. In the 15 years since, we have learnt
more about the millions of subtle differ-
ences in genes between different people and
far more about the causes of diseases than
at any time in history. Genetic diagnoses
of cancers, for instance, can show precisely
what type of cancer it is and how it is likely
to react to certain treatment regimes. We
know the genomes of cancers change as
tumours grow, making them harder to treat,
but offering the potential for more indi-
vidualised approaches.
“This may be tricky stuff to
talk about,” says Lancaster.
“But we do have to talk about
it.” lIt turns out he is not a
carrier of an allele for a
lung disease that afects
his wife’s family, which
means there is less chance
of his children sufering.
Medical informaticist
Michael Gillam (left)
and geneticist Adam
Rutherford.