The Webb Space Telescope can inspire humankind to reach the “final frontier” —within ourselves

The images emerging from the #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope are mesmerizing. NASA seems to be releasing a startling new image daily and, with it, an equally startling discovery. The Webb Space Telescope has enabled us to become virtual time travelers by allowing us to witness the universe in its infancy almost 13 billion years ago.

A few weeks ago, we learned that the telescope may have set a record by discovering the oldest galaxy ever observed—GLASS-z13—whose light began its journey to Earth just 300 million years after the #BigBang. That’s not bad for what was only the telescope’s tenth day on the job. Scientists are optimistic that this record will be broken in the not-so-distant future. With each new, spectacular image, #humankind is gaining a better sense of how the universe was formed and learning more about the critical moments immediately following the Big Bang.

I’ve been a fan of #StarTrek since childhood, so the telescope’s images remind me of Captain Kirk’s immortal words describing space as the “final frontier.” Yet the more I think about it, the more I believe that we need an equally compelling motivation to discover the final frontier within our own bodies.

While space has long captivated humankind, for just as long, the human body has been a source of mystery and fascination. Thanks to #genomics, there is now an equally—if not more—compelling reason for science to train its metaphorical telescope inward, into our bodies. After all, we’re no longer just in the Space Age; we’ve also entered the era of the genome.

           My background as an engineer at HP and in #biotech at Illumina has given me a front-row seat in witnessing how technology has transformed humankind. These experiences are why I believe reaching the final frontier of the #humangenome should be the next major goal of humankind. Only by completely understanding the human genome can we make once-in-a-lifetime medical breakthroughs, such as finding cures for some of the top 10 diseases causing the most deaths worldwide.

This is a bold statement, similar in ambition to JFK’s declaration that the United States would put a person on the #Moon before the end of the 1960s. We have a long way to go, but what President Kennedy said about the Moon also applies to this new mission: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.” The good news is that the hard work and investment put into the Webb Space Telescope has provided us with three valuable lessons we can use as a blueprint to more fully understand the mysteries within us all.

1) We know less than we think we know.

#NASA described the patch of sky captured in the Webb Space Telescope’s first image as “approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, a tiny sliver of the vast universe.” The sheer scale of this comparison is certainly daunting, even to the imagination, yet it is all too familiar to those of us devoted to unlocking the power of the human genome. In fact, each grain of sand contains tens of thousands of microorganisms. And just like those microorganisms, humans also possess genes—over 20,000—meaning that although we have gained some understanding of the human #genome, we have a long way to go before reaching the final frontier.

When we finally realize we know far less than we think we know about human biology, our inherent thirst for knowledge will set in and lead to a focused effort to magnify our understanding of ourselves. Just imagine if, over 400 years ago, Galileo had not pursued his curiosity by turning the newly invented telescope toward the heavens. How much longer would humankind have believed our planet was the center of the universe? 

2) More genomic discoveries must be born out of a unified effort between governments and the private sector.

As a child, I often visited the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum to marvel at the rockets that carried some of the first astronauts into space. Back then, only governments had the necessary funding and stability to develop the high-risk projects required to launch humankind into the Space Age. Some of those grand engineering feats were subject to huge cost overruns and delays in meeting deadlines.

The Webb Space Telescope was also funded and led by governments but included critical private-sector involvement. The telescope was supposed to launch in 2010 with a budget of roughly $3.5 billion, but delays and cost overruns meant that it was not deployed until late last year. with a price tag that had nearly tripled to $10 billion. Small wonder that governments led the way.

Without government support, few private-sector executives would approve projects with similarly grand ambitions tied to the human body due to the significant upfront costs, required scale, high risk of failure, and limited—if any—short-term investment returns.

Fortunately, public–private partnerships have already begun to drive some genome-related discoveries. However, to enable the private sector to reach its true potential, far more support from governments across the world is required.  

3) We must do more to expand global access to genomic medicine.

The knowledge gained from every discovery made by the Webb Space Telescope is available to everyone on the planet. Sadly, the same cannot be said for breakthroughs in #genomicmedicine. For example, when the #pandemic led to the creation of #mRNA #COVID-19 #vaccines, to this day, their benefits have primarily been enjoyed by people in higher-income countries. Simply using genomics to learn about our bodies is not enough; we must ensure that the follow-on medical breakthroughs benefit the many, not the few.

The Webb Space Telescope serves as a powerful reminder of what we can accomplish when we harness our innate curiosity. By applying lessons from the telescope’s images of celestial bodies, we should all be inspired to delve deeper into learning about our bodies.

The answers are waiting for us, with a paradigm shift as monumental as Galileo’s upending of our place in the universe but with the power to save tens of millions of lives. We must relentlessly strive to reach this final frontier because the potential benefits to humanity are too staggering and important to forgo.