2014 in Biomedicine: Rewriting DNA, Decoding the Brain, and a GMO Paradox

The year began with a landmark event. A decade after the first human genome was decoded at a cost of about $3 billion, the sequencing-machine company Illumina, of San Diego, introduced a new model, the Hyseq X-10, that can do it for around $1,000 per genome.

The system, which costs $10 million and can decode 20,000 genomes a year, was snapped up by large research labs, startup firms like J. Craig Venters Human Longevity (which plans to sequence 40,000 people a year), and even by the British government (the U.K. is the first country with a national genome sequencing project).

Francis de Souza, Illuminas president, predicted that within two years the genomes of about 1.6 million people will have been sequenced.

Cheap sequencing means a deluge of information and a new role for technology designed to handle and exploit big data. The search giant Google was the tech company most attuned to the trend, launching a scientific project to collect biological data about healthy humans, and offering to store any genome on its servers for $25 per year. A coalition of genetics researchers backed by Google tried to introduce technical standards, like those that govern the Web, as a way of organizing an Internet of DNA over which researchers might share data.

Easy access to DNA information led to debates over how much consumers should know. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said direct-to-consumer genetic health tests arent yet ready to be marketed. But consumers found ways to get the data anyway. Thousands of people headed to unregulated corners of the Internet to learn about their genes, and one father even managed to sequence the DNA of his own unborn son, claiming a controversial first.

Easily the hottest technology of the year was a new gene-engineering method called CRISPR, a powerful new editing system for DNA. Chinese scientists used it to produce genetically altered monkeys in January, and other scientists are now expected to create monkeys that model human psychiatric diseases. One measure of the technologys importance is that scientists are now fighting over who really invented it firstand who should own the patent on it.

During the year, bioengineers advanced on all fronts using other technologies. We saw novel kinds of cell therapy used to treat degenerative eye diseases, positive results from a study of gene therapy that could cure HIV, and the resurgence of a form of gene therapy called RNA interference. The development of replacement organs took steps forward, too, including new research showing how to add blood vessels to lab-made tissue using a 3-D printer and a move toward large-scale production of artificial tracheas.

This year, 10 of 35 new drugs approved by the FDA were biological molecules, like antibodies or protein injections. That was a record. And the FDA says the list of new drugs entering testing for the first time is dominated by biological treatments.

Those biotech drugs include the most important medical breakthroughs of the year, a new class of cancer drugs called immunotherapies. The drug company Merck has been testing an antibody that helps the immune system recognize melanoma cancer cellswith near miraculous results for some patients. The other approach to immune therapy involves rengineering a persons white blood cellsto recognize and kill certain kinds of leukemia tumors.

Bioengineering doesnt stop at DNA. The U.S. BRAIN Initiative, President Obamas signature science project, has the aim of developing emerging neurotechnologies for measuring the brain and eventually figuring out the neural code. The broad approach of the U.S. project contrasts with that taken in Europe, where funding has been directed toward one mega-project to create computer simulations of the brain, something that drew sharp fire from dissenting neuroscientists.

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2014 in Biomedicine: Rewriting DNA, Decoding the Brain, and a GMO Paradox