The Impact of Sequencing Genomes on the Understanding of the Origin of Life on Earth

This abstract describes the scientific basis of the origin of life on Earth. Life has never been on Earth like as it is today. It has evolved over millions of years from a single cell microbe to a trillion-cell human being. The history of the evolution of life on Earth is trapped as fossils in the geological formation of rocks trapped in the Earth. The lowest level of the three and a half billion-year-old rocks contains the fossil of the simplest life forms. As we moved up to study geological formation of the younger and younger layers of rocks, we observe accumulation of mutations over millions of years, resulting in the increase complexity of fossil records. We have recently learned a technique to extract DNA from the fossils. Using modern technique developed during genome sequencing, our analysis of the DNA from the fossil revealed the structures of ancient life forms. The sequencing of human genome has provided us with a genetic toolkit which contains molecular scissors (enzymes such as restriction enzyme, like EcoR1, DNA polymerase, DNA ligase etc.), to cut, paste, copy, and sequence a gene. This abstract also describes how we can move a gene from one species to another to benefit the bourgeoning population of the world by providing new food, new fuel, and new medicine to treat every disease known to mankind.

This abstract describes the scientific basis of the origin of life on Earth. Life has never been on Earth like as it is today. It has evolved over millions of years from a single cell microbe to a trillion-cell human being. The history of the evolution of life on Earth is trapped as fossils in the geological formation of rocks trapped in the Earth. The lowest level of the three and a half billion-year-old rocks contains the fossil of the simplest life forms. As we moved up to study geological formation of the younger and younger layers of rocks, we observe accumulation of mutations over millions of years, resulting in the increase complexity of fossil records. We have recently learned a technique to extract DNA from the fossils. Using modern technique developed during genome sequencing, our analysis of the DNA from the fossil revealed the structures of ancient life forms. The sequencing of human genome has provided us with a genetic toolkit which contains molecular scissors (enzymes such as restriction enzyme, like EcoR1, DNA polymerase, DNA ligase etc.), to cut, paste, copy, and sequence a gene. This abstract also describes how we can move a gene from one species to another to benefit the bourgeoning population of the world by providing new food, new fuel, and new medicine to treat every disease known to mankind.

Historical Background
Has all life always been on planet Earth as it is today? Why The essence of life is information and the information to convert non-living chemicals to living creatures is written on the double helical structure DNA. The living cell has no Soul, no Holy Spirit, no Vital Force and no Devine Intervention. Now, we know that Life is a series of coordinated chemical reactions of nucleotide bases. Different life forms are the result of the slow process of Natural Selection. Once we discovered that the secret of life resides on DNA, we could manipulate life that is we could cut paste and copy the DNA to create a new life form in the test-tube that never existed before. This new life form will carry instructions not only to clean up our environmental pollution, but also to provide the most nutritious food for the burgeoning population of the world, to provide new fuel to run the engine of modern society, and to provide new medicine to treat every disease known to mankind. view that is from the point of view of religious faith based on belief system that says that there is a Creator who created life on Earth.
What it tells me is that to know the way to Creator is to study Creation of life? Most religions believe that Heaven declared the Glory of God, it shows his handy work, there is a Creator who has done it. If that is true than I must study creation trying to read the mind of God. There is a tremendous creation of drive build into the

Cambrian Explosion
Darwin had the greatest foresight. By comparing the fossils, he brought from Galapagos, he saw the evidence of evolution.

Radioactive Dating
Radioactive dating provides accurate measurements of the age of the ancient rocks and the fossils trapped inside those rocks.
Heavy elements with large nucleus are unstable. Over a long period of time, their nucleus falls apart to more stable elements. By becoming stable, they release radiations such as alpha, beta and gamma radiations and they are called radioactive elements such as Radium, Thorium, Rubidium, Uranium etc. All radioactive elements release radiations at a steady measurable rate over millions of years. By measuring the ratio of the radioactive elements and its unstable end-product, it is possible to measure the age of the rock and the fossils trapped inside that rock. For example, radioactive element Uranium (Atomic weight = 238) over millions of years break down slowly through various isotopes to a more stable     is so small that we cannot even see with our naked eyes. We must use a powerful microscope to enlarge its internal structure. Under an electron microscope, we can enlarge that one cell up to nearly a million times of its original size. Under the electron microscope, a single cell looks as big as our house.
There is a good metaphor with our house. For example, our house has a kitchen, the cell has a nucleus. Imagine for a moment, that our kitchen has 23 volumes of cookbooks which contain 24,000 recipes to make different dishes for our breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The nucleus has 23 pairs of chromosomes which contain 24,000 genes which carry instructions to make proteins. Proteins interact to make cells; cells interact to make tissues; tissues interact to make an organ and several organs interact to make a man, a mouse or a monkey. In every cell of our body, we carry sixteen thousand good genes, six thousand mutated (bad) genes responsible for six thousand diseases and two thousand Pseudo-genes that have lost their functions, during evolutionary time. Our genome contains six billion four hundred million nucleotides bases half comes from our father and another half comes from our mother. Less than two percent of our Genome contains genes which code for proteins.

The Human Genome: The greatest Catalog of Human Genes on planet Earth
Human Genome contains a catalog of traits written on genes in nucleotide sequence. Our Genome also provides a catalog of all 24,000 genes; it also provides the number and location of each gene on the chromosome. The catalog provides 16,000 good genes, 6,000 bad genes and 2,000 pseudogenes (they lost their function).
The Human Genome Project has identified the following genes on  give a tissue and hundreds of tissues interact to give an organ and several organs interact to make a human [1][2][3][4][5][6].
Not all genes act simultaneously to make us function normally.
Current studies show that a minimum of 2,000 genes are enough to keep human function normally; the remaining genes are backup support system, and they are used when needed. The remaining genes are called the pseudo genes. For example, millions of years ago, humans and dogs shared some of the same ancestral genes; we both carry the same olfactory genes needed to search for food in dogs. Since humans don't use these genes to smell for searching food, these genes are broken and lost their functions in humans, but we still carry them. We call them Pseudo genes. Recently, some Japanese scientists have activated the pseudo genes, this work may create ethical problem in future as more and more pseudo genes are activated. Nature has good reasons to shut off those pseudogenes.
Our Genome provides the genetic road map of all our genes, past, present and future.
For example, it can tell us how many good or bad genes we inherit from our parents and how many of those gene we are going to pass on to our children. If a family has too many bad genes, and have a family history serious illnesses, they can break off the information flow and stop having children or stop donating mutated eggs and sperms. On April 3, 2003, several groups simultaneously sequenced the entire Human Genome and confirmed that less than two percent of the Genome codes for proteins the rest is the noncoding regions which contains switches to turn the genes on or off, pieces of DNA which act as promoters and enhancers of the genes.
Using restriction enzymes (which act as molecular scissors), we can cut, paste, and copy genetic letters in the non-coding region which could serve as markers and which has no effect, but a slight change called mutations in the coding region makes a normal cell abnormal or cancerous ( Figure 6).

Our Search for Unknown Diseases Has Come to A Closure
There are two most powerful implications of the human Genome Sequencing. One of them is that we have come to closure.
What it means is that we have the catalog of all genes in the Human Genome, we can search the entire genome and locate the desired gene. we will not wonder in the wilderness anymore. Everything there is to know about human health and traits are written on these genes in nucleotide sequences. Our Genomes provides the catalog of all genes.

Reference Sequence
We can scan the whole genome (Reference Sequence) for its response to a given situation. When we look at a normal cell and compare with an abnormal cell, we see the differences. Or when we compare their gene expression looking for a specific proteins, from a specific genes and for a specific nucleotide sequence, we can identify a specific mutation responsible for the disease. In the olden days, before sequencing human genome, when a patient visits a physician for some unknown ailment, the Physician would order several tests and would say to his patient, I don't know what is wrong with you, I will see if any of these tests show if my guess is right and if he is wrong, he will recommend few more tests to see if he could identify the illness. The guesswork and the trial-anderror days are over. Now, after sequencing the human genome, the physician would say to his patient, I don't know what is wrong with you, but I know where to find it. It is written in your Genome. It would be easy for a Physician to scan the patient entire genome and compare against the Reference Sequence to identify the mutations responsible for causing the disease.
He will refer the patient to a biotechnology Lab. The Lab Technician will take a small blood sample from the patient, separate his WBC, extract DNA, sequence his Genome and compare with the Reference Sequence letter by letter, word by word by word and sentence by sentence and send the result to the Physician who can easily identify the mutations responsible for causing the disease.
The result will provide the best diagnostic method to identify a disease. Our Genome is not just a diagnostic road map of our genes, it tells us to clone the good genes and shut off the bad genes. Using the good genes, it also tells us to make its large-scale protein for worldwide use such as Insulin and Human growth hormone. On the other hand, identifying the bad genes and tell us to design novel drugs to shut off bad genes responsible for causing serious diseases.
We have already demonstrated that using the genetic engineering techniques, we can cut, paste, copy, and sequence a good gene for industrial scale preparation as I said above such as Insulin to treat 300 million of diabetic around the world. Genome sequencing of bad genes start a new era of Genomic Medicine which is based on the development of new drugs for treating a disease based on the genetic make-up of the individuals. The next step would be to design drugs to shut off the mutated genes.
Gene Therapy will work if the disease is caused by a single gene mutation. Drug Therapy will work if multiple genes are responsible for causing diseases such as Cancers, Cardiovascular diseases, and Alzheimer.

Genomic Medicine
The first step is to cut the human genome with specific enzyme One day, I heard a lecture at NIH in which the speaker stated that methylated radio labeled Quinone crosses the Blood Brain Barrier. When radiolabeled Quinone is injected intravenously in mice, the entire radioactivity was concentrated in the Brain within 24 hours. I knew that Glioblastoma multiforme, the brain tumor in humans, is a solid aggressive tumor like Walker Carcinoma in Rats.
I decided to use Quinone moiety as a carrier for Aziridine rings to attack Glioblastoma. I remember by introducing just one Aziridine and one Carbamate moiety to Dinitro Benzine ring, at the London University I produced such a toxic compound against tumors whose toxicity could not be measured. With the Quinone ring, I could introduce two Aziridine rings and two Carbamate moieties and could create havoc for Glioblastoma. Within three years, I made 45 analogs of Quinone. One of the Quinone carries two aziridines and two carbamate moieties which was so toxic to Glioblastoma.
The tumor stop growing and started shrinking. I named the Diaziridine Dicarbamate Quinone, AZQ. My major concern was how toxic this compound would be to the normal brain cells. Fortunately, brain cells do not divide, only cancer cells divide. AZQ acts as a Prodrug. A Prodrug is compound carrying a chemical by masking group that renders it inactive and nontoxic. Once the prodrug reaches a treatment site in the body, removing the mask frees the active drug to go only where it is needed, which helps avoid systemic side effects. To grow rapidly, cancer cells use Glucose as a source of energy. Glucose is broken down to produce Lactic acid. It is the acid which activates the aziridine and carbamate moieties generating Carbonium ions attacking Glioblastoma which stop growing and start shrinking. My drug AZQ is successful in treating experimental brain tumor because I rationally designed to attacks dividing DNA.
Radio labeled studies showed that AZQ bind to the cancer cells DNA and destroy brain tumor and normal brain cells are not affected at all. AZQ is a new generation of drugs.
Not so long ago, these cancers mean death. Now, we have changed it from certain death to certain survival. The immunologists in our laboratories are developing new treatment technique by making radio labeled antigens to attack remaining cancer cells without harming normal cells. We have cured many forms of cancer. We have eliminated childhood leukemia, Hodgkin disease, testicular cancer and now AZQ type compounds which are being developed rationally. While most anti-cancer drugs such as Adriamycin, Mitomycin C, Bleomycin etc., in the market are selected after a random trial of thousands of chemicals by NCI, AZQ is rationally designed for attacking the DNA of cancer cells in the brain without harming the normal cells. We are testing combinations of these drugs to treat a variety of experimental cancers in animals [19][20][21].
In developing drugs for treatments, we poison bad DNA selectively.
All poisons are a class of chemicals that attacks all DNA good and bad alike. Chemicals that cause cancer, at a safe level, can also cure cancer. Science teaches us to selectively attack bad sets of DNAs without harming the good sets of DNAs.
Poisons are injurious to living creatures. There is a small class of chemical, when exposed to humans, disrupt the function of DNAs, and make normal cells abnormal and they are called cancer causing chemicals or carcinogens. I must confess, we still use surgery to cut off a cancerous breast; we still burn cancer cells by radiations; and we still poison cancer cells by chemicals. The largest killer of women is breast cancer. After all the treatment, the remaining cancer cells return as metastatic cells and kill breast cancer patients in three years. A decade from now, these methods could be considered as brutal and savage, but today that is all we have. We hope to develop new treatment for Breast Cancer. Hopes means never ever to give up. As I said above, I rationally design drugs to treat Brain cancer.  (Figures 1-6).

Conclusion
The Impact of sequencing human genome on the origin of life is considered. Has all life always been on planet Earth as it is today?
The answer is no. The sequencing of hundreds of living species showed that the complexity of life begins with simpler life form over millions of years. We have a common ancestor who came out of a Darwin's warm little pond over four billion years ago, the proof of our common ancestor came from the sequencing the book of life of many species and comparing their genomes. We discovered that the book of life of all living creature from the tiny blade of grass to the mighty Elephant including Man, Mouse and Monkey is written using the same four genetic letters, that is the nucleotides, Adenine to the present era, you will find no human fossils was discovered until you come to the three million old rocks. Johnson and his team found the first fossil of a bipedal chimp-human in a three and a half million old rocks found near the Haggar Valley in Ethiopia. These were the bones of an 18-year-old woman called Lucy. We have all descended from her. She was the mother of us all. The faster we learn this truth that you and I are brothers and sisters' children of the same mother, a black woman who was born in Africa three and a half million years ago, the better it is for all of us then and only then men and women of different races, different religions and different nations will respect each other and treat each other like brothers and sisters and time begins now.