Genie in the memory bottle

07 August 2015 - 02:08 By Katharine Child

Genetic researchers will one day be able to determine what type of memory you have - whether it's a good short-term memory, a great visual memory or a photographic memory. This is according to Craig Venter, one of the two men credited with sequencing the human genome.He spoke by video link-up at the Discovery Vitality summit yesterday.Venter sequenced the first genome in history at a private institute while Francis Collins did the same at a government organisation.Venter said he hoped the understanding of the brain that geneticists are gaining will reform the education system that only rewards children who have a good ability to memorise information.Venter did badly at school because he had no visual memory. Now Venter and other scientists are taking MRI pictures of people's brains to see how they are wired and structured.He said they had new algorithms that help them understand the genetic basis for the brain's wiring."About half of all genes contribute to functions in the brain."Different patterns of brain wiring are associated with different diseases and they are learning to predict diseases such as dementia.But genetics was extremely complicated, he said, with each person having thousands of different spontaneous genetic mutations at birth."We are doing one of the longest studies in autism, sequencing each child with the autism genome."It is not a single disease."Every single autistic child had different mutations in genes.This personalised appr-oach also helps them see which autistic children will respond to medicines.But even as Venter gains highly detailed information about people's genetic risks for certain diseases he has the following advice:The best way to increase life span is to exercise, cutting the risk of cancer and heart disease;If people saw the damage smoking did to their DNA, they might stop. When sequencing a person's genome, he said scientists can see if a person smokes, because of the molecular damage...

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