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Post-apocalyptic stories have long preyed on the concept of a pandemic sweeping the world’s population. But with new developments and scientific research into the field of genetics, we might soon see an end to pandemics.

Of course, the farther into the future we try to predict the worse our predictions are, but there are things being developed right now that we know with near-certainty will be used in the near-future.

While doing research on possible new post-apocalyptic stories ideas I came across this Origins project video:

It shows some of the world’s greatest scientists and their views on where the world is headed in the future. It’s all well worth a watch, but for the purposes of this post, feel free to skip to 9 minutes and you’ll see a guy called Craig Venter speaking about genetic sequencing.

Venter is currently working on creating faster ways to sequence genomes � not just human genomes, but all living things. What’s the outcome?

One upshot is that pandemics will no longer be possible, or at the very least, we’ll be able to cut them short and stop them from being quite as devastating as they currently are. Let me explain.

The world went crazy when Ebola broke out in Africa. Other nations were woefully slow and ill-equipped to deal with it. It was even (part of) the inspiration for my Z-Minus series.

But with new genetic sequencing technology a vaccine could be synthesized before a virus could spread. Imagine an outbreak happens in my sleepy home county of Norfolk, in the UK. Scientists could get some of the virus, sequence it, and then upload it in the cloud. Genetic sequencing companies all over the world would have access to it. They can download it and begin creating vaccines immediately.

Even with the speed of air travel the virus takes time to spread. By the time the virus gets to one of these countries, the vaccine would already be available! The virus would become ineffective.

But there is still that gap, the one between when the virus is discovered, sequenced, and uploaded, and the companies have to come up with a vaccine, and that’s the space where I am writing Z-Minus 4.

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