Cures for the Third World ’ s problems

The sequencing of the human genome has been heralded as a major milestone in biological science that will, without doubt, provide fundamentally new ways of studying the human condition (Lander et al., 2001; Subramanian et al., 2001a; Venter et al., 2001). Yet, for a substantial portion of the world’s population, the human condition is defined by diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, filariasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis, trypanosomiais, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, yellow fever, dengue, measles and rotaviral gastroenteritis. And, of course, the pandemic of HIV/AIDS looms as an ever-increasing threat over the Third World. It is in the developing countries where genome science could make the biggest impact. Indeed, the World Health Organization, in its report on ‘Genomics and World Health’ published this April, sees it the same way. ‘Within the next few years, new diagnostic agents, vaccines and therapeutic agents will likely be available for communicable diseases,’ the report’s authors expect, and state that ‘the time has come to plan how this technology and its potential clinical advances can be distributed fairly among the world’s population. Otherwise, this new field will simply widen the gap in health care between the rich and poor countries of the world’ (WHO, 2002). Moreover, the diseases of the developing world—sometimes referred to as tropical diseases—can no longer be viewed in a purely medical or public health context. There is an emerging body of evidence that suggests that infectious diseases pose a major risk to the economic survival of many Third World nations. Even more striking, recent data suggest that some of these diseases may have wider implications for geopolitical stability or the probability that a nation will experience armed conflict. Clearly, genomics is already advancing our knowledge of infectious diseases (Subramanian et al., 2001b). Automated DNA analysers and powerful software have made it possible to establish the complete genomic sequence of many pathogens responsible for morbidity and