Mike Mandel, from the Mandel on Innovation and Growth blog, says the most "significant economic event of the past decade" is the "failure of the Human Genome Project to deliver medically significant results." Ballooning healthcare spending, low job growth and a big trade deficit are strangling the US economy, he says, and "the Human Genome Project had … the potential to be a powerful antidote to all three of these problems." But Mandel says there's reason to be optimistic.