Lit Due to diseases, its safe to say, no DNA mapping, correct?

If the Star Wars galaxy had the technology to map DNA, then their wouldn't be diseases. Yet Count Vidian has Shilmer's Syndrome, Greer had Bloodburn and Iden Versio's mother had an unknown ailment. If DNA mapping existed in the galaxy, those people wouldn't have gotten sick, correct?

 

Being able to map DNA doesn't end disease.

Also, the best treatments would only be available to the rich.

 

One major disease was the candorian plague-I believe it was natural.

I imagine natural diseases(not bioweapons) adapt to jump across different sentient species and with the easy availability of space travel make pandemics very much a real threat.

 

They have at least the human genome completely mapped, because it's a necessary precursor to cloning. However, you'd need to be able to manipulate it in a way similar to the cloniers, and that seems to be a tightly controlled secret in the GFFA, so I reckon that it'll be a long time until disease for even the baseline humans, the most common sentients, is eradicated.

 

Plus the sheer number of potential disease vectors and sources from a million worlds, plus genetic drift due to sheer population size and spread.

 

STAR WARS technology can do anything at all but will somehow roughly simulate life in the 1970s and/or Medieval times.

 

Just thinking about this, given the Separatists major opponents (Jedi aside) are Clones, all grown from the same source, are there any points where they try or consider using a bio weapon to target them?

 

It's surprising the CIS didn't do it. But someone did it to Fett and he and any of his descendants now can't go to Mandalore, ever.

Anyway, it's useless to DNA map a, say, me, and then expect to save some one else, because I don't have his/her life threatening genetic based disease.

 

Well culture and technology are two very different things. Logically, tech to fix Bail's wife's fertility problems would be available, but Alderaanian society itself might be against it. That or they thought it more convenient to just adopt Leia when the case presented itself to them.

I'm pretty sure it was attempted. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure. It's why the Republic gradually switches over to getting clone troopers from multiple sources (Spaarti, Arkanian, etc) rather than just Kamino.

And on the topic itself, there are certain Force Powers (Curato Salva) that can pretty much cure any form of poison or disease, and these Force Powers are taught to Jedi Padawans in the OJO so they are pretty widespread.

 

I confess, I may have the unpopular answer here of, "Don't think too much about it. That way leads to Saxon and Ewoks."

 

The whole Boba can't go to Mandalore thing is actually rather ambiguous considering the apparent fight between Troy Denning and Karen Traviss over this issue.
Apparently, Troy Denning wrote that the virus would affect Fett DNA but then Traviss turned around and wrote that the whole thing might have countered about six decades before the Imperial Remnant launched the virus on Mandalore.
Then again, the Imperial Remnant scientists took a sample of Fett DNA from Mirta Gev, who is Boba Fett's granddaughter. So unless they got a direct source from Boba, it's likely it wouldn't have worked in the first place. But I think Denning did it because he hated Boba Fett and Traviss did it because she hated Denning.

 

This CIS scientist did attempt to target the clones directly: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ovolot_Qail_Uthan

But Palpatine's scientists turned the vector around and wiped out Uthan's entire homeworld.

AFA gene-mapping - some of the above posters have correctly pointed out that it was tightly controlled. Cloning for industrial purposes was extremely limited under the Empire, save for a few planets where cloning was the only form of reproduction (Khomm, for example).

(Of course, Palps kept the best toys for himself, thus why Spaarti cylinders are OK but Kamino gets hit with every export regulation the Empire can whip up.)

So, genetic therapy probably was limited to the Core due to price and regulations. Plus, between cybernetics and bacta, it probably wasn't percieved as terribly necessary.

 

The difference between Spaarti clones and Kaminoans clones is quantity and convenience vs quality and long waiting times.

Spaarti clones can be produced quickly but are as quality a "product" as Kaminoan clones which is a slower more methodical process.

I imagine cloning is heavily regulated in the GFFA for a few reasons-cultural(prejudice, ethics concerns, potential for misuse) and probably cost, availability and moral norms.

Not to mention that cloning can result in insanity, and other problems(especially among force users).

Disease could be bacteria or virus based as it is in RL-it makes sense that diseases in the GFFA environment would adapt to jump from multiple species but they can be targeted at certain populations(humans, near humans, closely related aliens).

I imagine every spaceport of repute probably does checks and has procedures to make sure pandemics don't spread.

 

Call her by her awesome first name. It's Zeehay Version. Not a real Versio.

 

TL/DR: Genetic mapping does not end disease in any way.

Source: Current MD/JD student with pre-med education in genetics and genomics. (Feel free to ask questions if desired)

Explaination:

Firstly, lets look at extenral pathogens:

Any virus, bacteria, fungus, or other pathogen even if mapped completely cannot be totally erradicated, because they replicate so fast they inevitably mutate regularly. If you target part of their genetics you'll wipe out every microorganism with that genetic segment, leaving the rest. The ones that left multiply so quickly the replace the original. Repeat this cycle a number of times you will either get a completely new pathogen that you have no idea what it does and could be MUCH worse, or you get one that figures out some way to defeat a genetic attack, and becomes essentially an impregnable superbug. REALLY BAD IDEA. This is the same reason that even our strongest antibiotics aren't working well against certain diseases anymore. We've used them too much and in too many ways, and bugs have develped resistance that we're not struggling to overcome.

It is better for the majority of the disease to remain a known pathogen that we have some way to treat once we're infected rather than try to genetically erradicate it and wind up with something far worse. Whatever is most common will out-compete any weird genetic varriants due to scale, and the varriants will die off leaving a mostly predictable disease. Introduce genetic targeting and you screw that up and create massive plague potential.

Genetic mapping of diseases is useful to determine susceptibilities to antibiotics, not to erradicate.

Secondly, lets look at genetic anormalities in the human (or alien) body (Shilmer's Syndrome for example):

Genetic mapping does not prevent this from occurring unless it is done on every child pretty early in gestation. We've had chromosome typing for decades in the real world, and we still have children born with various trisomies (or other easily detectable chromosomal additions, deletions or abnormalities) because a) not everyone gets the testing done, even in countries like Canada where we do it free, and b) some parents who do get it doen decide to have the child anyway because they don't believe its right to alter or abort (lets not turn it into THAT debate ok?). So people will still be born with these diseases no matter how advanced.

And that's just dealing with abnormalities that arise at conception that are present in all cells. Things like Cancer that arise later are from mutations in the genetic code affecting first a suppressor gene (inactivating it) and then usually something else that causes the cancer and further mutations accumulate. Here is the key thing: no two cancers or cancer cells are exactly alike. The mere nature of cancer is that every cell replicates and mutates at a VERY rapid rate. So any genetic therapy for cancer has to target the specific individual's cancer, and for each tumor potentially multiple different genetic varriants. This is why radiotherapy and chemotherapy are so successful - they're indiscriminant and cause so much damage that the cancer cells, which have no way to repair the damage done (see the inactivated suppressor described earlier). Normal cells do. So the cancer cells have their genetic mutated to the point they can no longer sustain themselves or replicate and die off. Normal tissue with the intact suppressor gene either repairs itself from the damage, or the cell is aborted and destroyed if it cannot be repaired (the second one of these is one of the causes of the horrible side effects of treatment). Normal tissue can repair its damage, cancer tissue cannot.

Genetic therapies can be developed for SOME diseases. Something like Huntingtons which is in short an excessively repeated sequence in DNA (the normal gene has a repeated section that when the DNA is coppied in cell division can accidentally be duplicated, triplicated, etc resulting in the abnormal one) can be targeted using genetic therapy. A protein can be designed to bind the specific repetition length in that individual, snip out a portion, and stitch the DNA back together at a normal length,, curring the disease before it ever onsets. By contrast, some other conditions are not amenable to this. Down Syndrome for example is the duplication of an entire chromosome (there is a single from one parent and a double from the other when there should just be two singles). Making a protein to target that chromosome will destroy both copies from the one parent, resulting in an even worse (fatal) situation with only one of the chromosomes from one parent (which if similar enough could also potentially be damaged/destroyed). So even if there is genetic sequencing done on a child with that genetic abnormality in utero, its too late to do anything but abort because manually removing one chromosome from each cell is impossible unless done in a petri-dish at fertilization, and not every birth will be artificial insemination.



In short, genetic mapping is a useful tool. One which will lead to the curing of many diseases, however it is not a wonder cure to every disease that ever existed. Its biggest potential in medicine is its ability to predict what dieases an individual will be susceptible to in future. That way, a person can begin preventative meaures to modify the risk of ever contracting/developing the disease, or if it is inevitable, begin a treatment course much earier to delay or prevent the onset of signficant symptoms or mitigate their impact, or in a worst case scenario, arrange their affairs appropriately.

Genetic mapping is a tool, just like any other medical technology, nothing more.


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Re the cost thing

Getting your individual genome sequenced is expensive, but it can be done for between 1 and 10 thousand NOW depending where in the world you are and what company you go with. In a society as advanced as the GFFA it would be an easily obtainable medical test if so desired, just something that would take time to get results and face the limitations described above.

 

lol what. How could you possibly think that DNA mapping = no diseases?

Even if you're only referring to genetic diseases it's still not going to cure anything. Might tell you if you're going to get something but that's about it.

 

Sheesh I don't think we should laugh at the poor dude for asking a good question.

I'm sort of in the mind of what Henning says, but... I do think some of those things mentioned could be prevented in the future, especially if we create "smart" microbots/cells to target virus-resistant strains, which has been speculated. I think there are two things here though:

-Disease is a general term not specific to genetics per se
-It's possible there are things in the GFFA that can cause mayhem to human DNA in ways that our earth microcritters (viruses, bacteria, etc, which all work with more or less the same molecular parts) aren't capable of... I'm pretty sure the GFFA easily has the tech to fix replicate DNA, deleted DNA, and jumbled DNA. But aliens might have things that do more than this -- that add something to DNA that we don't have on Earth.

Of course, this is assuming the GFFA humans have earth-like DNA to begin with... which with all this mitochlorian business makes me wonder.......

 

You mean midichondria

 

If this is going to be one of those things


I just don't like to see someone laugh at someone else for asking a science question. World needs more questioners.

 

It's not so much the question as it is where it was made/how it was made. OP states, without ambiguity, that DNA Mapping would get rid of diseases. This is wrong. While, yes, it would be a good question to ask how DNA mapping would be implemented in a technologically advanced society like we see in Star Wars, proposing an intrinsically flawed theory and expecting people to agree is fairly silly.

 

Naw, I think the OP asked an honestly good question. It's debated all the time in biology. We don't know if we'll be capable of during genetic illness completely in the future.

 

Here is a direct quote from the OP:

"If the Star Wars galaxy had the technology to map DNA, then their wouldn't be diseases."

The question is based on a misunderstanding of what DNA Mapping is. Hence the reactions found in this thread.

 

Being able to map DNA is not the same as being able to eradicate pathogens.

This is abundantly true in RL.

Now let's look at the GFFA-you have probably a hundred orders of magnitude greater number of viruses and bacteria that are pathogens or could become pathogens.

Futhermore you have countless species traversing a galactic body 130,000 light years across.

There is no unifying government(while the largest control directly or indirectly large parts) so you can't have some 100 Quadrillion credit campaign to eradicate disease.

Think of the smuggler who stumbles upon the jungle planet and carried back a virus with him(Star Wars doesn't do this but it would happen(though I imagine there are measures in place to counteract such risks) and you have new viruses swamping the Galaxy).

Furthermore I am of the opinion biotechnology in the GFFA is not that advanced-what can they do? Cloning, bioweapons, and maybe a few other things.

Genetic engineering, cross breeding vastly different species(chimeras), and various other feats of advanced bioengineering don't seem to really exist.

Force users and alchemy or manipulation of midi-chlorians doesn't count as that is using something supernatural or mystical to enact a biological change. Not artificial means to do the same(biotech).

 

Hey I just figured this out.

There have to be advanced DNA mapping available in the SW galaxy. Because they have the technology to clone organisms.

Which of course, has nothing to do with curing diseases, but DNA mapping is a sure thing.

 

Nah, I disagree.

It's like asking if the ability to put a cardboard box on someone's head means they can breathe in space and fly to the moon.

Fair enough that you shouldn't ridicule people or make them feel bad but you can't deny that it's a really silly question.