© NatureStephen Baker
A decade on from a landmark genetic-sequencing study, promised progress on typhoid fever has not materialized, says Stephen Baker.Genome sequences come thick and fast in modern science. Nature has just published an analysis of the genome of the naked mole rat, and a historic sequence of the plague bacterium
Yersinia pestis, reconstructed from medieval victims of the Black Death.
What is the value of such research? In my field, infectious disease, the genomics revolution has been substantially less beneficial than was anticipated. To those of us who work in poor countries in which infectious diseases that have been all but eliminated in the West are still common, it is clear that the wide-eyed optimism and persuasive advocacy for genomics that were expressed at the turn of the century were at best naive, and at worst potentially damaging, diverting resources from more worthy causes. Certainly, the outcomes have not matched those promised as justification for funding the research.
I have personal experience of the hype and the reality. Ten years ago, I was an author on the paper that
announced the genome sequence of
Salmonella enterica Typhi, the microorganism that causes typhoid fever. The research was promoted with great fanfare, which declared that scientists were at a turning point in the fight against the disease. A decade on, we are no closer to a global solution.
The
S. enterica Typhi sequence did help us to understand the biology of the organism and to address enigmas such as why it causes disease only in humans, how it develops resistance to antimicrobial agents and how it modulates the human immune response. And although not even the most optimistic genomics or public-health expert would have predicted eradication of the disease within a decade, the sequencing did at least make elimination a realistic target.
But the promised concrete benefits - bespoke treatments, next-generation vaccines and low-cost diagnostics -
have failed to materialize.
Comment: Citigroup and the SEC, protecting Investors, while Americans go homeless!
If this Editor understands the above it sounds simply as if: In 2007 Citibank used "collateralized debt obligations" covered by junk assets to bet against mortgages that were destined to fail (due to the looming job-less market), knowing of the coming economic collapse in the housing(/job) market without investors knowing. So investors complained and the SEC got investors their money back. In the end 1,000's of people have lost their homes and gotten no help. If I'm not understanding, one thing is still obvious: