What Do You Hope to See?

The Edge.org asks its annual question of "What will change everything: what game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" Eric Kandel hopes to see a biological understanding of mental illness; Ian Wilmut is looking for a change in healthcare due to molecular genetics and stem cell biology; Craig Venter says he is on the verge of being able to insert a synthetic chromosome into a cell; and Dean Ornish looks forward to personalized medicine though adds that lifestyle changes are important. Finally, Alan Alda is not as optimistic, saying that "evidence from the past seems to point to our becoming increasingly dangerous pretty much every time we come up with a new idea or technology."