BIBLE VERSE
"And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered" Matthew 10:30
QUOTE
“But the lengthening of the thread of life itself,
and the postponement for a time of that death
which regularly steals on by natural dissolution
and the decay of age is a subject which no physician
has handled in proportion to its dignity” Francis Bacon
SCIENCE
According to recent demographic research data, it is estimated that about 117 billion members of human beings have ever been born on this earth since 190,000 B.C.E. It is estimated that by 2050 the number of people who have ever lived on the planet will be about 121 billion. All those who have gone before us, those yet to come, and all the 7.8 billion of us who inhabit this mortal earth are genetically unique, and any two human beings are 99.9% identical. Yet within that 0.1% lies the biggest mystery. Because of these tiny genetic differences, a particular disease such as cancer or heart or lung disease is not necessarily the same in two patients. The genes that a person inherits from parents and the environment (nature and nurture) influence the symptoms and treatment efficiency. That is why a particular drug may work in one person and not the other. Two patients or even identical twins may exhibit similar symptoms yet respond differently to medications. However, with the advent of human genome sequencing, a new field of biomedical science
called precision medicine or personalized medicine has emerged. Precision medicine can now be tailored to an individuals genetic makeup. At the molecular level Medication can be targeted at the specific genetic change (mutation) rather than the organ or the location of a disease, especially cancer. Precision medicine allows us to identify specific diseases (some types of cancer) early, evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment and help us understand the risk of inheriting or transmitting a particular genetic disease. For this purpose, the National Institute of Health is recruiting over one million participants for a research program called ALL OF US.”The goal is to learn more about individual differences in “nature-nurture” makeup and how they may affect human health and disease.
Could we be made young again through precision medicine and delay the aging process? Once the incurable becomes curable, can the final incurable called quote on quote death be curable also? Could science mitigate death and enter a brave new world and affirm Apostle Paul’s cry of triumph over death, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”