Understanding the Importance of Genomics - Essay Example

The paper "Understanding the Importance of Genomics" is a  perfect example of medical research. A healthy nation is a backbone for progression and development. Timely and quality health services are very necessary to achieve different goals in life. With regard to this, the United States Department of Human and Health services devised a nationwide plan named Healthy People 2010 which was further expanded to Healthy People 2020. The plan consists of 42 different topics with genomics being one of them.

The word genomics relates to the study of genomes of different organisms. Genomes comprised of genes as well as the non-coding sequences of DNA and RNA. It is the genome that carries all of the hereditary information of the organism. Genomics is therefore a branch of genetics that is concerned with completing genetic mapping along with determining the complete DNA sequence of the organism. Different scientific information and evidence have made the importance of various genetic tests and family history very clear. The target of this plan is to better the health services and minimize the harm in both public and clinical practices with improved and developed genetic tools.

Healthy people 2020 has two objectives related to the field of genomics. Firstly the target is to increase the proportion of women who have a familial history of either breast or ovarian cancer to receive genetic counseling. Secondly, there should also be an increase in the percentage of those who have recently been diagnosed with colorectal cancer and should be receiving genetic tests in order to determine if they have Lynch syndrome or not.

Presently genomics plays a significant part in nine of the ten leading causes of death. Different important indicators have been chosen which will be tracked throughout this whole period to judge the progress of this program. Genomics has an important role to play in many diseases right from its diagnosis to its treatment and is also involved in identifying the risk factors or various preventive measures. Thus it is imperative to fulfill the objectives and goal highlighted in the 2020 health plan.

With the vast amount of data regarding different genes and DNA, scientists and clinicians have greater and better tools to play with and find out the genetic basis of many diseases such as cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, and cancer which constitutes the major problems being faced by the United States. However, it isn’t very easy to apply the objectives throughout the nation in a quick time. Currently, a couple of problems have come up which the government has been trying to resolve. The need to established well-recognized panels for the evaluation of different genomic tools is a lot but it is turning out to be highly difficult. Secondly, the current procedural terminology codes have been unable to track genomic tests leading to patient noncompliance.

With the ongoing research in this field, one can completely understand the importance of genomics projects and see the positives in these set objectives. One of the major causes of the high mortality rates these days is reported to be hepatocellular carcinoma. Recently gene expression has been used in order to find potent therapeutic drugs that will be able to tackle the problem in a more aggressive way (Chen et al., 2011). Another prevailing disorder nowadays is schizophrenia. In his research article Corvin, (2011) has suggested new mechanisms involving genetic mutations behind this order. This is certainly going to help in the prognosis of the patient. However, like all projects, this too has some problematic issues which should be dealt with. Lack of privacy, psychological depression, environmental issues, and various uncertainties regarding some diseases are just some of these socio-legal issues linked with genomics (Haun, 2011). Nevertheless, the objectives mentioned in this project are excellent and every effort should be made in order to achieve them in the allotted frame of time.

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