Human Genome Project

When I heard about an art trip to visit Chicago for a few days, I was stoked.

This was probably tenth grade. My family didn’t have money to throw around for things like field trips to Chicago, but fortunately for me, I was a true hustler when I was a kid, and I was able to sell candy at school in order to raise money for the trip.

A tip of my hat is due to all those dentists working so hard today to undo all that damage I did to everyone’s teeth back then. Sorry, everyone! But I really needed to get to Chicago.

So for a few days, we high school kids headed off on an adventure, starting (and ending) with a chartered bus that would traverse 800 miles each way. Those teachers who agreed to chaperone were either saints or insane. Either way, shout to them for making this possible.

Upon arrival in the Windy City, one of the main highlights should have been going to the top of the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world at the time. For me, though, this was disappointingly sterile. I was certainly biased, having been to the (very shaky) top of the Empire State Building, a previous titleholder for “tallest building.”

Empire State felt… dangerous. Sears felt tame and lame.

Thinking about these modern marvels, I can’t help but remember that not all of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world were buildings—but all of them were human-built structures.

These incredible monuments to permanence spoke volumes about their builders. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Pyramids of Egypt.

In spite of the longing to last forever, six of the seven wonders were destroyed by earthquakes or fire. Only the Great Pyramid of Giza stands today, and for 3800 years, this magnificent structure stood as the tallest structure made by human beings.

All of these so-called wonders really did inspire a sense of wonder. All you needed to do was to gaze upon the 100-foot-high Colossus statue designed to commemorate a military victory, or try to figure out how all those pyramid-shaped stone blocks made their way out into the middle of the dessert.

Instantly, a sense of humility ran through your body, and chills ran down your spine.

Today, buildings come and go. While the pyramids held that “tallest building” title for nearly four millennia, today’s tallest human-built structures hang on to the title for a few short years before relinquishing. Burj Khalifa in Dubai has had it for 13 years so far.

Yet today’s wonders—the things that make those little hairs stand up on the back of your neck—are arguably more colossal, more intricate, and with further-reaching implications than any of those ancient wonders.

One Wonder

Let’s speculate about one of those today. It’s called the Human Genome Project.

Prior to 1990, we were sort of fumbling around in the dark with regard to the so-called “blueprint of life.”

Initiated in 1990, the HGP aimed to shine a light on (and map) all the genes of human beings, collectively known as the genome. This was human biology at its most fundamental level; understanding how to manipulate this code could change everything.

It was a promise of an entirely new way to do medicine.

Scientists from around the world joined forces. Biologists, computer scientists, geneticists, and more labored together to build today’s Pyramid of Giza. By 2003, they had done it: the entire human genome is now mapped out, and ever since then, we have been steadily exploiting this opportunity.

With the entire human genome mapped, scientists can now identify genetic markers associated with various diseases, leading to more targeted and effective treatments. This precision approach is slowly revolutionizing cancer treatment, allowing for therapies tailored to the genetic makeup of an individual's tumor, significantly improving outcomes.

Genetic testing has given us the ability to screen for genetic predispositions to certain conditions, like heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. Simply understanding that you have a genetic marker can allow you to take preventative steps, or at least to plan for a future outcome.

And, in 2020, as a dark shadow fell across all of humanity while covid spread everywhere, mRNA rushed in to the rescue.

Not only was a comprehensive understanding of the human genetic code a crucial step, but remember all those biologists, computer scientists, geneticists? The networked structure that HGP created was still intact (and even more robust) by the time the pandemic hit.

Thanks to this network, and thanks to the HGP, the mRNA vaccine took a minuscule fraction of the time it took to develop other, similar vaccines in the past. Millions of lives were surely saved.

CRISPR and gene-editing technologies deserve their own Goatfury Writes piece. I’ll probably do that one day, but suffice it to say that we are only getting started with this stuff.

What are some other “modern wonders” out there? Surely, the internet is the low-hanging fruit here, easy to see as monumental in everyone’s lives, but what else would you count as today’s wonders? Is there room for a physical structure or two in the 21t century?