This paper attempts to forecast the directions that genomics research and design will take up until 2015. Although not focusing explicitly on the developing world, it articulates some pertinent issues in an accessible, easily digestible way.

It identifies ten political, social, economic, and technical drivers of genomics over the next decade, and offers different scenarios for each. The drivers include: social attitudes; social mobilisation; demand; functionality of genomics technologies; governance of knowledge; business forces; and regulation. From a developing-world perspective, it appears likely that the more pessimistic scenarios may proliferate.

The paper implicitly highlights the contestations, differing values, and widely different contexts in which genomics research must be conducted, and how appropriate technologies are brought to the marketplace.

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