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There is a race afoot among blue chip IBM and a number of smaller start-ups to reach the $1,000 mark for sequencing individual DNA. Ever since the Human Genome Project completed its work in 2001, the quest to read a single person’s genetic code went from a possibility to a reality. The reality cost the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, France and China conglomerate a cool $1 billion, however. You have a billion dollars lying around to have your genetic make up sequenced? Me either. Do you want to have your personal genetic code cracked? Probably. Maybe. I don’t know either.

There are some decided benefits to having your DNA sequence burned onto a magnetic strip that can be read at any physician’s office, pharmacy or hospital. For one, we already know that some drugs produce bad interactions with people that possess certain alleles. For example, the 2D6 gene is activated by some drugs, including tamoxifen, a treatment for breast cancer. For tamoxifen to be effective, however, the 2D6 gene is required to produce a substance that metabolizes the drug. People with the PM allele at the 2D6 gene (2D6PMs) don’t produce the substance in enough abundance to see a real effect from the drug. Knowing what kind of 2D6 gene combination a person has before prescribing the drug instead of prescribing it as part of a wait and see approach, then, would certainly be beneficial.

And that’s just one drug. Genes play a major role in drug interaction as well as disease. We began a while back the journey toward pinpointing the genes that play a role in certain types of disease. Like Alzheimer’s. It looks like a variant in the APOE-4 gene might be partially responsible for the build up of protein plaque in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Sequencing a child’s genes at a young age could highlight this variant. With the advent of genetically-tailored drugs (which will come on the heels of cheap genome sequencing), a few sessions of gene therapy could clear that right up, there you are, here’s your lollipop, no Alzheimer’s for you, little boy.

So one can see just how eager companies like Big Blue are to be the first to get to a thousand-dollar personal genome (and after that a $100 sequence) that anybody can go get in exchange for their dough and a drop of blood. It will literally revolutionize medicine as much as germ theory did, back when physicians used leeches and poked their dirty fingers in gaping wounds to see what’s inside. The New York Times reports IBM is working on a DNA transistor that can pull a strand of DNA through a silicone membrane for reading and sequencing. A rival start up, Complete Genomics (why do they always such creepily simple names?), has just broken into the $1,700 area, Reuters reports.

Personal genomes will also revolutionize society. Those genetic sequences could lead to new levels of discrimination. So far, we humans have done a pretty good job of discriminating against one another based on looks or religious affiliation, really high-level stuff. Discrimination is merely an undesirable byproduct of categorization. One can only imagine the brave new world of discrimination we will venture into when we categorize people by their genetic make up. We’re already on track to understanding that pretty much every aspect of biology is dictated by our genes, which has led to intense investigation of what genes are responsible for what functions. So what happens when we find the gene responsible for antisocial behavior? Do we administer gene therapy? If we can’t, do we allow the future deviant to live free? To live?

What we’re looking at in our future is the potential for eugenics on more accurate and better defined level than ever before. These questions and concerns are nothing new; it just seems like we should start talking now about what kind of society we want, since it appears genetically engineering it is just beyond our fingertips.

More on HowStuffWorks.com:
What does Alzheimer’s have to do with cold sores?
What have we learned from the Human Genome Project?
How Designer Children Will Work