To battle ailments decode the double helix mystery

One of the most exciting, even exhilarating, features of the present-day world is the giant strides that are being taken by researchers working quietly and tirelessly in scientific laboratories to improve our living conditions. While the attention of ordinary people is focussed on the negative aspects of daily life shown on television, the advancements in fields such as medicine go unnoticed till the much longer life spans of today become evident all over the world. Now, mankind is seemingly poised for another leap forward with the discovery that the so-called ‘junk’ DNA may not be useless after all but serves a crucial, though not always beneficial, purpose.

Till now, the double helices of the DNA were thought to be without any function, a left-over of the evolutionary process like the appendix and the tail-bone. However, 10 years of a collaborative project of 440 scientists in 32 laboratories, called Encode (Encyclopaedia of DNA Elements) has strengthened the belief that these supposedly redundant parts of the DNA probably play a dual positive and negative role in the life of the host by either producing a protein or keeping it on hold.

The medical implications of this discovery, if it is proved, are considerable. At present, the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s and other ailments focusses on targeting the relevant gene, with mixed results. Now, the emphasis may shift to the promoters and suppressors in order to tackle the disease at its root. These ‘attendants’ have been likened to an organisation’s middle management comprising watchers and clock-punchers, who step in to activate the genes. Since there are a million of them for every 23,000 genes, a ratio of 50:1, the middle management can be deemed to be well-staffed. Even if the spotlight is now on this ‘group’, the ultimate mystery of the human gene itself, which determines what is inherited from the parents, remains beyond our ken — at least for the present.