The biology classes went on their annual biology field trip where Sam Rhine, genetics educator and speaker, spoke about the dream of genetics: to cure common diseases with the use of new technology.

With the most up to date research and discoveries – from“Organs on a chip” to creating new organs with scaffold’s, to CRISPR, the helpful gene removing enzyme system -Rhine discussed how the dream of genetic scientists is to cure common diseases in this new era of ‘Genomic Medicine’.

“Diseases go away. Smallpox went away. Polio went away. Common diseases will also go away,” Rhine said, commenting on genetics’ past and future.

 Almost all the students in the biology classes felt as if they could relate to this topic because they knew at least one person with a common disease.

“I know someone who has Type 2 Diabetes and now that I understand what the technical cause was, it made me understand more of how the disease works,” Puja Lad, freshman honors biology student, said.

Rhine used a graph in his presentation to visually present how people with common diseases are ranked in the overall population.

“On a graph of the population, there are extremes and then there is the middle, average, which is the most common. People with common diseases are beyond what is called the threshold and are in the red boxes on the graph. One day in the future, the dream is to make all the red boxes empty, so that no one ever crosses the threshold again,” Rhine said, referring to the polygene re assortment, which is in common diseases.  

As he went into major specifics about all the parts, signals, stem cells, and variants in genetics, he highlighted what is being done with the new technology today and how it is saving lives.

“Science fact is always better than science fiction,” concluded Rhine as he ended his presentation. “Scientists all have the same dream and that is to lessen the pain of human suffering and to save as many lives as we can.”