In its simplest terms, genetics is the study of inheritance. However, looking a little deeper, there is nothing simple about it. Genetics tells us how a body can grow from a single cell; it shows how life on Earth has changed in a myriad ways over billions of years; and it forms a central plank in the fight against disease. What’s more, it also has the potential to create new technology that will transform society, ensuring health for all and perhaps even allowing us to control the future development of our species and reshape the living world.
As a science, genetics is relatively new: its foundations date from the 1850s, but those many different strands were not drawn into a single field until the early 20th century. It was slow going at first, and not until the 1950s did the great mysteries of genetics begin to give up their meanings. First was the discovery of the DNA double helix, and after that the so-called ‘Central Dogma’, which shows how an inanimate chemical code can result in a living body. Progress accelerated rapidly as we unlocked more of the secrets of the gene, but even today, despite huge advances, there are many riddles within our DNA that we are still to solve. We may have learned how to decipher the genetic code, but the work of translating what it all means is still proceeding.
Genetics draws from many fields, such as chemistry, biology, agriculture, engineering, even information theory and statistics. For many, the expectation is that genetics can tell us exactly who we are, what’s ‘in the genes’. Long before the science of genetics existed, our ancestors would have understood that a child was a unique blend of characteristics inherited from its parents. However, the extent to which the nature of our genetic code rules our behaviours and personalities is proving the most difficult puzzle to solve. Perhaps the latest interests of genetics, such as stem cell research, epigenetics and artificial biology, will provide those missing pieces – certainly these intriguing areas of research suggest that genetics will continue to have a huge influence on medicine and our understanding of what it means to be human in the 21st century and beyond.