The "low hanging fruit" of genome-related health care will be knowing which drugs are likely to treat you best, says science journalist Carl Zimmer.

“唾手可得”的基因组相关医疗服务将帮助你了解何种药物对自己疗效最好，科学记者卡尔·奇默（Carl Zimmer）说。

撰文播音：史蒂夫·米尔斯基（Steve Mirsky）

翻译：陈美娟

校对：张艺箫

“I think if genome sequencing gets just super cheap then it’s…probably very soon going to make sense to just sequence all your DNA.”

“我认为，如果基因测序费变得特别便宜的话……可能很快你就能对你所有的DNA测序了。”

Science journalist Carl Zimmer, author of the book She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity. Zimmer spoke last month at New York University’s Journalism Institute. Right now, commercial genome services only look at a small percentage of all your DNA. But as the cost plummets, you’ll get your entire genome.   

科学记者卡尔·奇默（Carl Zimmer）是《她有她母亲的笑声：遗传的力量，保留与潜力》的作者。奇默上个月在纽约大学记者组织上做了发言。现在，商用基因服务仅仅能测试DNA的小片段。但当检测费用下调之后，你将能得到完整的基因数据。

“Then the issue will become, well, what do you use your genome for in terms of your health. A lot of people will actually benefit from something I learned by looking at my genome, which is, that if God forbid I were to get hepatitis there are certain drugs that won’t do me any good. Because I have certain genes. Pharmacogenomics, as it’s called. I think that pharmacogenomics might be kind of the low-hanging fruit of genome sequencing. Because, doctors so often, if you get sick, they’re like, well, let’s try this. It might be hepatitis, it might be depression, all sorts of things, like, well, that didn’t work very well, let’s try this. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just skip the stuff that doesn’t work and go to the stuff that does? So that might be kind of where medicine goes in terms of using our genomes and understanding how heredity affects your health.”

“未来医疗服务关注点将会变成，利用基因组数据来维持健康。许多人的确能和我一样因为了解自己的基因组信息获益，我了解到的是，如果老天不让我得肝炎，某些药物对我来说肯定没有一点作用。因为我携带特定基因。这个学科被称为药物基因组学。我觉得懂得药物基因组学就相当于接受简单易得的基因组测序。当你不舒服的时候，医生通常都会说，我们来尝试检查一下。你的病可能是肝炎，也可能是抑郁症，你的这个指标不正常，再来检查一下下一个指标。如果我们能够跳过这些无效的步骤，直接切入疾病进展不是更好吗？所以未来医疗服务可能会发展到利用基因组数据了解药物作用位置，以及理解遗传因素如何影响人的身体健康。”