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(Program not available for streaming.) What will it mean when most of us can afford to have the information in our DNA—all six billion chemical letters of it—read, stored and available for analysis? 'Cracking Your Genetic Code' reveals that we stand on the verge of such a revolution. Meet a cancer patient who appears to have cheated death and a cystic fibrosis sufferer breathing easily because scientists have been able to pinpoint and neutralize the genetic abnormalities underlying their conditions. But what are the moral dilemmas raised by this new technology?

Will it help or hurt us to know the diseases that may lie in our future? What if such information falls into the hands of insurance companies, employers or prospective mates? One thing is for certain: the new era of personalized, gene-based medicine is relevant to everyone, and soon you will be choosing whether to join the ranks of the DNA generation. More Ways to Watch.

CRACKING YOUR GENETIC CODE PBS Airdate: March 28, 2012 NARRATOR: This is no ordinary flash drive. From a small company called Knome, it contains a complete digital record of a person's genetic code, all six billion letters of it. NATHANIEL PEARSON (Knome, Inc.): Your D.N.A. Is what makes you unique. It governed how you grew in the womb and how you look today. And, until now, only a few hundred people in the world have had a chance to see their whole genome and try to understand it.

NARRATOR: Few could afford the cost: $350,000, just three years ago, but that's changing. FRANCIS COLLINS (National Institutes of Health): It's almost amazing to be able to say that each of us will have the chance to have our complete genome sequenced, for less than $1,000, in the next four or five years, but it's true.

NARRATOR: The result could be a revolution in medicine: using genetic information to diagnose and cure disease. JOE BEERY (Noah and Alexis Beery's Father): If you go back and you look at some of the home movies that we took, and you see Alexis falling down, and you look at her now, you think, it's unimaginable that she was actually that same child. I really do believe that whole-genome sequencing really, really saved Alexis' life. NARRATOR: But it could also lead to wholesale invasions of privacy and an ethical quagmire. JAY ADELSON (23andMe Client): There's a lot of fear about, say, insurance companies or other professionals being able to access that data. RUDOLPH TANZI (Massachusetts General Hospital): And then the company geneticist says, 'He has an increased risk for cancer, okay? Just don't interview him; he'll never know.'

Do you want that? Because that is potential reality. NARRATOR: Thousands of years ago, the Ancient Greeks were given some famous advice: 'Know thyself.' Today, when those words are a biotech company motto, they present a new kind of challenge. Just how well do you want to know yourself in the age of personal genomics?

Up next on NOVA: Cracking Your Genetic Code. A few years from now, you may boot up your tablet to find a life-changing report: a report on your own, personal genetic code, on the thousands of genes that spell out your body's instructions. Deciphered, your genes will reveal your risks for one disease after another, those you may get yourself and may pass on to your children. How will it feel to have this information? You may find out sooner than you think. GREGORY STOCK (Author, Biophysicist): We're entering an era of unprecedented self-knowledge. We are really beginning to come to understand the living processes that constitute ourselves, where we can begin to intervene to take control of our own future.

FRANCIS COLLINS: Genomics offers us the chance to look, in the most precise way, at what the causes of illness are and how to prevent and treat illnesses with that information. And we have that opportunity, now, in front of us.

NARRATOR: This could be your future:a new kind of personalized medicine based on your genetic code, one that predicts risks, so you can stop diseases before they appear, if there's a way of stopping them. RUDI TANZI: But what if you can't? What if you have a gene mutation that says, doesn't matter how you live your life, doesn't matter what drugs you take, you will get this disease and probably before 50 years old. CATHERINE ELTON (Journalist): Not everybody can handle genetic testing.

And this information affects the way you live the rest of your life, if you are going to get a disease. NARRATOR: But while some sound notes of caution, the science is rushing ahead and is now taking on medical challenges once thought impossible. Consider Andrew Schmitz, a bubbly five-year-old, who has no idea his life hangs in the balance. PAULA SCHMITZ (Mother of Andrew Schmitz): It started with high fevers and joint pains. And then, July he had his first stroke.