 to describe a number of technologies, some that are more applicable to the developed world, others to the developing world, but are particularly designed to try to assist us in preventing and treating chronic disease. Clearly advances that get answers that are precise and immediate in terms of the health of the individual are going to be very important. Whether it's analyzing a blood sample to say whether somebody's cholesterol is out of whack, whether it is following somebody with diabetes to see whether their blood sugar is actually being controlled, or whether it's predicting somebody's future risks of illness when they're still healthy based upon DNA analysis. Now with the ability to scan the complete human genome, all of the DNA that you've inherited from your parents and increasing knowledge about how to use that to make predictions about your future risk, then prevention can start to be individualized. Thanks to recent advances in technology we should be able to sequence your genome or mine for a thousand dollars or less within the next several years. So far mapping your DNA is a bit of a boutique operation. It's not part of the standard of medical care. These are still very early days, but you can. Here's a printout from one direct to consumer genome scan that shows one person's risks for disease. Note the result here for diabetes which indicates this person's risk is greater than average. This is a consequence of a number of variations in specific genes. Here notably one called TCF7L2. I can now tell you this is my own result, a one that has motivated me to lose 25 pounds and start an exercise program. That's not for everybody. You have to figure out whether you want the information and what you would do with it. Well there are things you might find out that you're not too happy about. If you find out you're at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. So is that going to be a cloud that follows you around? Are you going to, every time you forget your keys, think to yourself, oh boy it's starting. Now let's move to infectious diseases, specifically influenza. We've struggled for some time to deal with the flu virus. The challenge lies in the virus's ability to change its coat from year to year. If we could identify a vaccine that actually targets the stem where variation does not occur, it could be protective against all flu viruses. It would prepare you for a pandemic of a new strain that we haven't identified yet. This is actually becoming possible. We have to figure out how to do better, both in terms of understanding disease and developing ways to prevent it and treat it and then distributing those so that they actually work in the real world. Is there a reason to tilt in one direction or the other between technologies for the developing world versus technologies for the world that has more resources? For instance, if you want to check somebody's blood sugar or their blood pressure and they are miles away from the nearest facility but they have a cell phone, technology is now being developed to do that. Mobile health as we call it. This is a new kind of pill box that is connected by cell phone technology to a central computer server. When the pill box is opened, the signal informs researchers or healthcare providers that the patient has initiated taking the medicine. So all of these things that we've been talking about give us a chance to transform healthcare delivery in ways that will be more efficient and more cost effective. Technology is a tool. Technology in my view does not have moral value. It is what it is. It's information. It's a way of approaching a problem and getting an answer. It's what you decide to do with it that then takes on ethical aspects. And I think we also have to think about whether overemphasis on technology tends to diminish the importance of what it means to be human. It was Albert Schweitzer who said our technology must not exceed our humanity.