In many people's minds, genetic testing seems mysterious and omnipotent. Professor Wang Daowen, director of the Genetic Diagnostic Center at Wuhan Tongji Hospital, said that this is a misunderstanding of genetic sequencing.
Simply put, gene sequencing is through sequencing or microchip technology, the DNA molecules in the cells of the person being tested, the person being tested contains disease-causing genes, disease susceptibility genes, etc., can be seen at a glance. Prof. Wang Daowen gave an example: a 17-year-old boy from Yichang suffered from high blood pressure, and the examination found that he also had the symptom of low blood potassium. After evaluation, experts suspected that it might be a genetic disease, and after gene sequencing, the boy was diagnosed with liddle syndrome (a genetic disease). He was given only the appropriate drug, amphotericin, at 3 cents a day, which is both cheap and effective. "This is the future development of 'individualized medicine'."
"It is true that there is a mess of genetic testing on the market today, and it needs to be standardized and managed." Wang Daowen introduced many genetic testing companies to put out attractive advertisements, such as "kits can predict diseases", "cancer prediction package" at a high price, Prof. Wang said that this is "flimsy". Prof. Wang said that this is mostly a "bluff". "Gene sequencing technology requires very high requirements in all aspects, such as equipment, researchers with medical background, standard laboratories, etc., otherwise the test results can not be guaranteed. In addition, the technology should also be very rigorous in the application. The human genetic 'code' is so complex that only those diseases that are currently well researched can be genetically sequenced, otherwise blind testing is meaningless."
Professor Wang said that the two state ministries called a halt to genetic testing, which does not mean that genetic technology will be eliminated, on the contrary, precisely because the technology is an emerging and useful technology, there is a greater need for strict access. Currently, an expert group led by academician Zhou Honghao of Hunan Medical University is submitting relevant standards to the state.
For the people familiar with the "non-invasive prenatal genetic testing", the provincial maternal and child health hospital eugenics genetic department director Song Jieping introduction, strictly speaking, this means by checking the number of chromosomes for disease screening, does not belong to the prenatal gene sequencing. Therefore, this screening does not belong to the category of the state called off.