Category Archives: Human Longevity

While the average life expectancy has steadily increased since the 19th century, data from the International Database on Longevity showed that the age of the very oldest people on the planet appeared to plateau in the mid-1990s -- at a mere 114.9 years.

The grim reaper comes for everyone in the end, but sometimes he is in less of a rush. This was certainly true for Sodimedjo, an Indonesian man who died on Sunday, but whether he was the full 146 years he claimed remains doubtful -- not least because his purported birth date is 30 years before local birth records began.

Scientists have their own reasons to be sceptical. A study published last year pointed to the existence of an upper ceiling on the natural human lifespan.

While the average life expectancy has steadily increased since the 19th century, data from the International Database on Longevity showed that the age of the very oldest people on the planet appeared to plateau in the mid-1990s - at a mere 114.9 years. Since the apparent plateau happened at a time when the reservoir of healthy centenarians was expanding, scientists concluded that an intrinsic biological limit had been reached: even if you evade accidents and disease, your body will still steadily decline until it passes the point of no return, the data appeared to suggest.

Jan Vijg, a geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, who led this research, said: We simply provided evidence that humans do indeed have a ceiling that they really cannot go beyond. Thats part of being human.

There will be the occasional outlier - the French supercentenarian and oldest woman to have lived, Jeanne Calment, was 122 when she died in 1997, but most of us have a shorter intrinsic shelf life. The probability of someone living to 146 is infinitessimal, Vijg said. If somebody told you that they saw a UFO yesterday but its gone now, youd probably be polite, but you wouldnt believe it, said Vijg. Thats my reaction with this story.

Before resigning yourself to the knowledge that you will almost certainly expire by the time you reach 115 years, it is worth noting that this ceiling could be moveable in the future.

Internal clock makes some people age faster and die younger - regardless of lifestyle.

Richard Faragher, professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton, puts it this way: How long can a human live if you dont do anything to them? Probably around 120. But there is a separate question, how long do people last if you can do something to them?

Until now, the steady increase in average life expectancy (as distinct from lifespan) has been driven by fewer people smoking, better nutrition and antibiotics. Drugs and surgery for heart disease and cancer have also played a part.

However, scientists are only just beginning to explore the possibility of therapies designed to target the process of ageing itself, as well as the illnesses that come with advancing years. This field has recently taken an intriguing twist, as evidence has emerged that ageing is not simply the manifestation of environmental wear and tear. Instead, the latest work suggests that ageing is at least partly driven by an internal genetic clock that actively causes our cells and organs to grind to a halt.

This raises the intriguing possibility that ageing could be slowed or even reversed, and some animal studies have already claimed to do just this.

I wouldnt argue that the ceiling is unmoveable, said Vijg. But trying to say what the age limit is, science cant yet say, its predicting the future.

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Ageing: Scientists say human beings don't generally live beyond 120 years - Hindustan Times

The Lounge, at Soho Theatre, and its three versatile actors took some very risky steps and never put a foot wrong. Photograph: Ed Collier

It sometimes feels like weve stopped being human, were just commodities.

Elizabeths mood was low, and Joyce sympathised.

Know what you mean, were objects of care, not people.

Another post-bingo chunter at my companions elderly persons unit (EPU). As usual we had homed in on the travails of longevity, because, like it or not, its a total game changer. All of us, young and old, are confronted with issues, dilemmas and conflicts which did not occur in the good old days, when we died on time. Its about perceptions, how the young see us, how we see them. We need new eyes.

A week earlier, I had been in the audience for an extraordinary play, The Lounge, by Inspector Sands, which explored these novel issues with an unusual sensitivity. The portrayal of old age requires a delicacy of touch to avoid caricature, a courage and integrity to preserve all its ugliness and beauty. The Lounge and its three versatile actors took some very risky steps and never put a foot wrong.

It opened with three elderly armchairs on stage, identical to those in our EPU; two figures stood in the shadows at the wings and a woman came forward and stood staring ahead: half manic, half defiant. We knew from the programme that she was 97, and initially her appearance belied this. Challenging. Human. Ageless. Then in an explosive moment of theatre, she crumpled and contorted into geriatric reality, to be helped to sit down by the care workers.

From that moment, we were enthralled as the drama demanded our engagement. It tossed us about, teasing our loyalties, as the three actors moved seamlessly between parts, one moment carer, the next cared-for, one moment busy and bothering, the next collapsed and conniving.

It asked difficult questions. Why were the careworkers from eastern Europe? Was their behaviour condescending or affectionate? Was their language impertinent or comforting? It presented uncomfortable conundrums. Food concealed in a handbag, the struggle over control of the TV remote, dreams of elite uber-care and nightmares of bog-standard carebots.

Every exchange required us to make choices and judgments. Our sympathies were made to swing wildly between the carers, the management, the generations. We experienced the exasperation of the care workers at the perversity of the elderly residents breaking rules, sabotaging food, or refusing to speak. Then some small detail, a phrase, an expression, made us feel the helplessness and indignity of old age.

Two images especially have haunted me. There is a visceral scene when 97-year-old Marsha watches dislocated and distraught as her possessions are brutally auctioned off after the sale of her house as worthless tat; she had become disposable, a commodity without value, and she knew it.

The constant metamorphosis of the actors from carer to cared-for reminded us that the reaper waits for us all

The other involved the grandson who had come to deliver a birthday present to his grandad, who has gone awol. While he waits for the errant granddad, grandson delivers a sustained rant about the good fortune of the older generation compared to his own millennial disadvantages, which ends in a limp acknowledgment that maybe his grandad had earned his privileges, after all. The rant over, grandson morphs into grandad.

This dramatic ploy, the constant metamorphosis of the actors from carer to cared-for reminded us that the grim reaper waits for us all no distinctions, no exceptions. And now that we live longer, he is tormentor as well as terminator.

If we are to confront these added years with dignity and, yes, even joy, as we wait in the lounge for our turn to be called, we need above all that human genius of social connection which feels anothers pain, which walks in others shoes.

The Lounge makes a dramatic plea for this in its presentation of crumbly life in all its raw reality, the frailty and fortitude, the mischief and meanness. It gave new life to my old eyes, and when the lights came back on, I looked round the auditorium at an audience with hardly a grey hair in sight. I left hoping that their young eyes had also seen something new.

The Lounge is at the Soho Theatre, London, until 20 May. Box Office Tel: 020 7478 0100.

Stewart Dakers is a 78-year-old community voluntary worker

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Old people need to feel the joy of human interaction, too - The Guardian

In case you havent heard of this event yet, the World Precision Medicine Congress (WPMC) is an industry gathering in London, bringing together over 600 decision makers, influencers and innovators from across academia, biotech and the pharmaceutical industry.

Whats so special? The awesome team at Terrapinn (the congress organisers) is offering a full pass for free to one lucky Labiotech reader. The pass also includes access to two other joint conferences. More details on that below.

Hear the industry disruptors: Adam Blatt, Global Head of Genomics at AstraZeneca; Susan Solomon, CEO and Co-Founder of the New York Stem Cell Foundation; and more from GSK, Duke University, Human Longevity Project, Novartis and others.

The programme boasts keynote presentations from influential thought leaders in the industry, there are 6 focused tracks to chose from and if that wasnt enough its co-located with the World Advanced Therapies & Regenerative Medicine Congress and World Cord Blood Congress

For more details check out the brochure here!

More on the ticket giveaway:

The World Precision Medicine Congress is partnering with Labiotech to offer a free ticket to attend the conference taking place on 17-19 May in London!

What youll get:

How to take part in the prize draw?

We wish you the best of luck!

P.S. We are planning on teaming up with a few more events, so we can have more giveaways for our awesome readers (thats you!) stay tuned for more! Whats your favourite event, whom should we partner with? Send us a quick email or let us know in the comments.

Image from Corepics VOF /shutterstock.com

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Labiotech's first ever ticket giveaway - Win a ticket to WPMC 2017 - Labiotech.eu (blog)

Technology Networks

Gut Microbiome Could Help Diagnose Liver Disease Technology Networks To detect NAFLD earlier and more easily, researchers in the NAFLD Research Center at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Human Longevity, Inc. and the J. Craig Venter Institute report that the unique microbial makeup of a patient's ...

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Gut Microbiome Could Help Diagnose Liver Disease - Technology Networks

Science Daily

Stool microbes predict advanced liver disease: Proof-of-concept ... Science Daily Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) -- a condition that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancer -- isn't typically detected until well advanced. Even then ... and more »

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Stool microbes predict advanced liver disease: Proof-of-concept ... - Science Daily

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease affects millions of people in the United States. The condition is often not detected until it is well advanced, and a definitive diagnosis requires an invasive biopsy of the liver. One subtype can lead to severe liver cirrhosis and cancer. Now, promising results from a preliminary study set the stage for a noninvasive test that only requires a stool sample. The test examines the makeup of gut microbes in the stool sample.

The study - by researchers from the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) and colleagues from Human Longevity, Inc. in San Diego and the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, both in California - is published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition characterized by a buildup of fat in the liver. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, it is "one of the most common causes of liver disease in the U.S."

NAFLD is a different condition to alcoholic liver disease, in which the fat buildup is due to heavy alcohol use.

In the new study - which involved 135 participants and establishes "proof of concept" - the researchers found that the stool-based test was able to predict advanced NAFLD with an accuracy of between 88 and 94 percent.

First author Rohit Loomba, a professor of medicine and director of the NAFLD Research Center at UCSD, says that determining who has or is at risk for NAFLD is a "critical unmet medical need."

Although there are dozens of new drugs in the pipeline, if it were possible to better diagnose the disease, then patients could be better selected for trials and "ultimately [we] will be better equipped to prevent and treat it," Prof. Loomba adds.

There are two forms of NAFLD: simple fatty liver and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Fast facts about NAFLD

Learn more about NAFLD

Simple fatty liver is a form of NAFLD in which there is fat in the liver but without inflammation or cell damage. This form does not usually lead to liver damage or complications.

NASH is type of NAFLD where, in addition to fat buildup, the liver also shows signs of inflammation and liver cell damage.

The inflammation can lead to scarring or fibrosis, and then to more severe cirrhosis, which alters the liver's fundamental biology. NASH can also progress to liver cancer.

Nobody knows exactly what causes NAFLD, or why some of the people affected have simple fatty liver while others have NASH.

Estimates suggest that around 20 percent of people with NAFLD have NASH. In the U.S., between 30 and 40 percent of adults are thought to have NAFLD, and approximately 3 to 12 percent have NASH.

Being obese - and having conditions related to obesity, such as type 2 diabetes - raises the risk of developing NAFLD.

Prof. Loomba and colleagues note that NAFLD is thought to affect up to 50 percent of obese people.

In their study report, the researchers note how studies have shown that the makeup of a person's gut microbiome - the trillions of microbes that live in the gut together with their genetic material - may affect their risk for obesity.

This set them wondering if there might also be a link between obesity-related liver disease and the gut microbiome. If this is true, then it may be possible to analyze the makeup of the gut microbiome from a person's stool sample and link that to their NAFLD status.

To test this theory, the team first examined 86 patients with NAFLD diagnosed by biopsy - including 72 with mild or moderate disease and 14 with advanced disease.

They sequenced the genes from the participants' stool samples - analyzing the presence, location, and relative abundance of various microbe species.

This process identified 37 species of bacteria that differentiated advanced NAFLD from the mild or moderate stage with 93.6 percent accuracy.

The researchers then validated the finding in a second group of 16 patients with advanced NAFLD and 33 healthy volunteers who acted as controls.

This time, they found that by testing the relative abundance of nine species of bacteria - seven of which were in the 37 identified previously - they could differentiate the NAFLD patients from the controls with 88 percent accuracy.

"We believe our study sets the stage for a potential stool-based test to detect advanced liver fibrosis based simply on microbial patterns, or at least help us minimize the number of patients who have to undergo liver biopsies."

Senior author Dr. Karen E. Nelson, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute

The researchers are keen to point out that so far, the test has only been trialed on a small number of patients in a highly specialized setting. Even if further studies validate it, a stool sample test for NAFLD is unlikely to be available for clinical use for at least 5 years.

Learn how a protein discovery may offer a new treatment target for NAFLD.

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Fatty liver: Diagnosis of advanced fibrosis from stool microbes shows promise - Medical News Today

May 2, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)a condition that can lead to liver cirrhosis and cancerisn't typically detected until it's well advanced. Even then, diagnosis requires an invasive liver biopsy. To detect NAFLD earlier and more easily, researchers in the NAFLD Research Center at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Human Longevity, Inc. and the J. Craig Venter Institute report that the unique microbial makeup of a patient's stool sampleor gut microbiomecan be used to predict advanced NAFLD with 88 to 94 percent accuracy.

The proof-of-concept study, which involved 135 participants, is published May 2 in Cell Metabolism.

"We estimate that as many as 100 million adults and children in the U.S. may have NAFLD. Determining exactly who has or is at risk for the disease is a critical unmet medical need," said first author Rohit Loomba, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, director of the NAFLD Research Center and a faculty member in the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. "There are about 50 new NAFLD drugs in the pipeline, including about five that will likely be approved for use in the next two years. If we are better able to diagnose this condition, we will be better at enrolling the right types of patients in these trials, and ultimately will be better equipped to prevent and treat it."

The precise cause of NAFLD is unknown, but diet and genetics play substantial roles. Up to 50 percent of obese people are believed to have NAFLD. As mounting evidence continues to suggest that the makeup of a person's gut microbiome may influence his or her risk for obesity, Loomba and team began to wonder if the gut microbiome might also be linked to obesity-associated liver disease. If so, they hypothesized that a stool-based "read-out" of what's living in a person's gut might provide insight into his or her NAFLD status.

To answer these questions, Loomba and team examined two different patient groups. The first group included 86 patients with NAFLD, as diagnosed by biopsy. Of these, 72 had mild/moderate NAFLD and 14 had advanced disease. Collaborators at Human Longevity, Inc. sequenced the microbial genes extracted from each participant's stool sample and used that information to determine which species were living where, and the relative abundance of each. The researchers found 37 bacterial species that distinguished mild/moderate NAFLD from advanced disease, allowing them to predict which patients had advanced disease with 93.6 percent accuracy.

The team validated this finding with a second study group that included 16 patients with advanced NAFLD and 33 healthy people as controls. In this case, they found nine bacterial species whose relative numbers allowed them to distinguish NAFLD patients from the healthy volunteers, with 88 percent accuracy. Seven of these bacterial species overlapped with the signature 37 used in the previous group.

There are four main types of bacteria found in the human gut: Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. Loomba and team found that patients with advanced NAFLD tend to have more Proteobacteria and fewer Firmicutes in their stool than those with early stage NAFLD. At the species level, one major difference the researchers found was in the abundance of E. colithese bacteria were three-fold more common in advanced NAFLD patients than early stage patients.

"We believe our study sets the stage for a potential stool-based test to detect advanced liver fibrosis based simply on microbial patterns," said senior author Karen E. Nelson, PhD, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute, "or at least help us minimize the number of patients who have to undergo liver biopsies."

While Loomba estimates that a stool-based microbiome diagnostic might cost $1,500 if it were on the market today, he predicts that cost will lower to less than $400 in the next five years due to advances in genomic sequencing and analysis technologies.

While excited, the researchers caution that so far this new diagnostic approach has only been tested in a relatively small patient group at a single, highly specialized medical center. The team is now applying for grant funding to expand their study in a larger cohort across multiple sites. Even if successful, a stool-based test for NAFLD wouldn't be available to patients for at least five years, they said. Loomba also points out that while a distinct set of microbial species may be associated with advanced NAFLD, this study does not suggest that the presence or absence of these microbes causes NAFLD or vice versa.

"We are looking forward to further studies to assess the role, if any, these microbial species play in gut permeability, liver inflammation and cross-talk with other factors to induce liver injury, and ultimately influence disease progression in NAFLD," said study co-author David A. Brenner, MD, vice chancellor of UC San Diego Health Sciences and dean of UC San Diego School of Medicine.

"Understanding the microbiome, just as sequencing the human genome, is one part of the puzzle on human health and disease," said study co-author J. Craig Venter, PhD, co-founder and executive chairman of Human Longevity, Inc. "New technologies, such as machine learning, are allowing for tremendous advances to interpret these data."

Explore further: Many diabetics don't know they have serious liver disease

More information: Rohit Loomba et al, Gut Microbiome-Based Metagenomic Signature for Non-invasive Detection of Advanced Fibrosis in Human Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, Cell Metabolism (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2017.04.001

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in the Western world. NAFLD is a frequent finding in patients with type 2 diabetes, but the exact prevalence of NAFLD, as well as whether patients ...

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Stool microbes predict advanced liver disease - Medical Xpress

FY17

Effective July 1, 2016

Click on the Payroll Title for a listing of job titles by level.

Salary Schedule

Longevity Payment

Minimum

Midpoint

Maximum

10 Years Service (25% of full allotment)

15 Years Service (50% of full allotment)

20 Years Service (75% of full allotment)

25 Year Service (100% of full allotment)

$38,769

$52,144

$65,237

$208.50

$417.00

$625.50

$834.00

$39,993

$53,797

$67,598

$215.25

$430.50

$645.75

$861.00

$41,449

$55,762

$70,075

$223.00

$446.00

$669.00

$892.00

$43,076

$57,955

$72,834

$231.75

$463.50

$695.25

$927.00

$46,072

$62,002

$77,930

$248.00

$496.00

$744.00

$992.00

$50,540

$68,039

$85,529

$272.25

$544.50

$816.75

$1,089.00

$55,471

$74,692

$93,913

$298.75

$597.50

$896.25

$1,195.00

$60,578

$81,586

$102,594

$326.25

$652.50

$978.75

$1,305.00

$65,758

$88,582

$111,398

$354.25

$708.50

$1,062.75

$1,417.00

$71,513

$96,349

$121,188

$385.50

$771.00

$1,156.50

$1,542.00

$77,852

$104,901

$131,958

$419.50

$839.00

$1,258.50

$1,678.00

$87,074

$117,332

$147,607

$469.25

$938.50

$1,407.75

$1,877.00

NOTE: As the result of the Board of Trustees approval to extend the current UCPEA contract, the July 1, 2015 salary schedule for the UCPEA bargaining unit will remain in effect for fiscal year 2017 or until such time as a successor agreement is ratified and approved by the Board of Trustees and Legislature, whichever occurs first.

LONGEVITY: Employees in the bargaining unit shall be eligible for longevity increments in accordance with Connecticut General Statutes. The full longevity payment shall be 1.6% of the mid-point of the range according to the salary schedule.

UCP Levels by Job Family

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UCPEA Classification Salary & Longevity Schedule ...

The oldest man in the world died on Sunday at his home in Indonesia. Sodimejo, known to many as Mbah Gotho, claimed to be 146 years old. While the Indonesian government only started tracking births in 1900, Sodimejo has identification papers that say he was born in December 1870. And though his age was called into question in 2016, Indonesian authorities have confirmed the validity of his documents. If theyre right, he was the oldest person on record.

This would mean that the oldest human was 24 years older than what we have previously even thought possible for aging. And in a world filled with people obsessed with living forever, people are hungry for the keys to slowing the inexorable process of bodily and mental decay.

Unfortunately, Sodimejo doesnt appear to have had many answers that doctors could bottle. A lifelong smoker, he cited patience and close relationships with loved ones as the keys to his longevity. Nevertheless, besides the whole smoking thing, this is good advice, even if it is a little underwhelming.

But having a positive attitude doesnt seem to sufficiently explain Sodimejos long life. His case, if true, would upend conventional wisdom about human lifespans. So what could account for it?

One possible explanation for why Sodimejo lived from 1870 to 2017 is not totally unique to him: Improvements in public health and sanitation affect everyone. When he was born, most people didnt have electricity, running water, or access to science-based health care. Shortly before he died, though, he spent several days in a modern hospital. This is a huge change from the era of his birth.

The common causes of death during much of Sodimejos life such as water-borne pathogens, tuberculosis, or even infections that settle in minor scrapes are now considered to be almost completely preventable. So while many people who were born around the same time as Sodimejo may have fallen victim to illnesses or accidents that are now treated as routine, he beat the odds for a man born in 1870.

But that doesnt seem to explain his whole situation. Other people in his peer group also dodged preventable diseases before they were curable, so if we choose to explain his long life as beating the odds, we still need another way to explain why he outlived his peers by so long.

In 2016, scientists said that the upper limit for human aging is 115 years old and that this limit is fixed and subject to natural constraints. The matter is far from settled, though; other researchers in the field vigorously disagreed about whether there could be a fixed upper limit to human aging at all. Directly contradicting that study in the same year that it was published, Jeanne Calment, who at the time was the worlds oldest person, died at 122 years old.

Besides, while seemingly irreversible physical changes like slowed mitochondrial regeneration and telomere shortening set in as we age, a fixed limit on aging doesnt seem to make sense in light of average human lifespans that continue to increase each year.

So, the possibility that the limit to human aging does not exist remains. This doesnt mean that all humans will live for a super long time because human illnesses vary in who they affect and are often unpredictable. It could simply mean that Sodimejo is on the far end of the bell curve, where outliers live. If thats the case, then whats to stop others from joining him there? We could be witnessing an era in which the maximum human lifespan simply continues to increase, and not just for the super rich.

Then again, its also entirely possible that Sodimejo wasnt actually 146 years old.

Peter is a writer living in New York. He is preoccupied with Star Wars and memes, but he writes about climate change, chatbots and ants. You may have seen his work in Popular Science, New Scientist and Motherboard.

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What the Death of the World's Oldest Human Means for Longevity - Inverse

With the advent of CRISPR , a new way to edit DNA, the field of genomic technology has never been more exciting. The implications have yet to be seen, but scientists could theoretically snip out a person's genetic risk for disease. But it's also never been a more anxiety-inducing time. Some experts argue innovations in genomics are moving forward at a pace faster than our ability to parse their potential consequences.

In a panel discussion at Fortune s Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego, scientists discussed the promises and perils of this breakthrough technologysome of which they're already starting to see.

I think CRISPR is a very exciting discovery, said J. Craig Venter, co-founder of the health company Human Longevity, Inc. and one of the first scientists to sequence the human genome. Venter is using genome sequencing as a way to help predict a persons risk for disease and offer more personalized treatment with a physical exam called the Health Nucleus : an eight-hour, $25,000 inside-and-out doctors appointment that includes whole-genome sequencing, high-tech scanning and early diagnostics.

So far the company has sequenced more than 40,000 human genomes. Of the people that complete the Health Nucleus, one in 40 will discover they have a serious cancer they didn't know about, he said.

Yet some experts are skeptical that exhaustive testing always translates to better health. Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Translational Science Institute, called for a more reserved way forward in his remarks at the conference, arguing that too much scanning can lead to more false positive results and potentially unnecessary interventions. We have to prove that doing tests are truly associated with positive outcomes, Topol said. We have to be much more discriminative about the tests that we do.

Some companies are taking a more tempered approach: inexpensive testing that looks for specific genes known to substantially increase a persons risk for disease. Color Genomics, a genetics company that has brought down the cost of genetic testing, focuses on cancer and offers affordable tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which can significantly raise a womans risk for breast and ovarian cancer. It changes the equation in terms of treating disease, said Othman Laraki, co-founder and CEO of Color Genomics.

As for finding and fixing genetic problems well before they even arise? The scientists on the panel agreed that they're not there yet, and that current iterations of CRISPR may not be quite as precise as the hype has claimed. For now, that may be for the best. Editing human embryos with CRISPR should be a long way off, said Venter. Not something we do next week.

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How Scientists Think CRISPR Will Change Medicine - TIME