The Documentary Cracking Your Genetic Code

DNA was the only thing that contributed to a little girl's death one friday night, when she collapsed from a heart attack suddenly. The doctor said it was simply in her genes, but what does that really mean? Certain mutations and differences can transpire in someone's genes which causes particular genetic diseases and variances to occur. By taking samples of a person's DNA, which is what our genes consist of, doctors can determine mutations in genes that can impact specific traits and illnesses. While this is very intriguing to me, I wanted to understand how accurate genetic testing is, and how it affects people's everyday lives. My search consists of uncovering more about genetic testing itself at its core, and will include how much these tests cost, what companies provide answers to discovering what lays in our

This is one of the most important guiding questions in my journey to explore deeper into the thoughts of genetic testing and how it ties together what possible effects it can have on human lives. I initially thought, if someone were to get genetically tested, they could find exactly what disease they have and how they could cure it. However, that not the case. As I was watching the documentary Cracking your Genetic Code, they discussed how genetic diseases can be very hard to diagnose if that alteration in a person's genes has not yet been found in previous patients. By analyzing many different people, doctors were able to find the breast cancer mutation. For example, this would have not been able to occur without testing patients and finding certain similar alterations in different DNA samples. It is also how they discovered that seventeen genes lead to colon cancer (Weintraub Arlene). There are still many undiagnosed variations of genes out there, and genetic testing could help find more answers concerning