From a practical standpoint, how could society benefit?
What can take weeks to figure out could drop down to one or two days. This is huge for all types of applications, but it could dramatically advance “precision medicine,” which benefits specific groups of patients often through using genetic or molecular profiling. This personalized approach represents a promising way to tackle particularly difficult diseases or rare diseases, which often have a genetic origin and can be especially challenging from a treatment perspective.
Ideally, genetic analysis offers the promise of more targeted treatments, catching diseases earlier and saving money for both consumers and society. While HDNA is still in the experimental stages, it may help turn those promises into reality over the next few years.