In the eyes of many ordinary people, genetic testing is mysterious and omnipotent. Professor Wang Daowen, director of tongji hospital Gene Diagnosis Center, said that this is a misunderstanding of gene sequencing.
Simply put, gene sequencing is to detect DNA molecules in the cells of the subjects by sequencing or chip technology, and the status of the pathogenic genes and disease-prone genes contained in the subjects can be seen at a glance. Professor Wang Daowen gave an example: a boy in Yichang, aged 17, suffered from hypertension and was found to have symptoms of hypokalemia. After evaluation, experts suspect that it may be a genetic disease. After gene sequencing, the boy was diagnosed with liddle syndrome (a genetic disease). He only needs to take the corresponding drug, triamcinolone acetonide, at 3 cents a day, which is cheap and effective. "This is the future development of' personalized medicine'."
"There is indeed chaos in genetic testing on the market now, and it needs standardized management." Wang Daowen introduced that many genetic testing companies put out attractive advertisements, such as "the kit can predict diseases" and expensive "cancer prediction kits". Professor Wang said that this is mostly a "fudge". "Gene sequencing technology has very high requirements for all aspects, such as equipment, researchers with medical backgrounds, and standard laboratories. Otherwise, the test results cannot be guaranteed. In addition, the application of this technology should also be very rigorous. How complex the human gene' password' is, only the diseases that are clearly studied at present can be sequenced, otherwise blind detection is meaningless. "
Professor Wang said that the suspension of genetic testing by the two ministries does not mean that genetic technology will be eliminated. On the contrary, it is precisely because this technology is a new and useful technology that strict access is needed. At present, an expert group led by Academician Zhou of Hunan Medical University is submitting relevant standards to the state.
For the well-known "non-invasive prenatal genetic testing", Song Jieping, director of the eugenics genetics department of the Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital, said that strictly speaking, this method is to screen diseases by checking the number of stains, which does not belong to prenatal gene sequencing. Therefore, this screening does not belong to the scope of this national suspension.