Voices on DNA(Page 2 of 2) To me, DNA is like the silver bullet to the werewolf of injustice. I'm just so grateful for it. If I ever meet Mullis, I'm going to kiss the man. Or give him a big hug and invite him over for supper. That's the least I and many others owe him. It's put the guilty behind bars and freed the innocent. KENNETH OLDEN For the first time I'm really confident that we can elucidate the causes of complex diseases, be they genetic or be they environmental or be they gene/environment. In fact, diseases are caused by genes, environment and behavior, and it's the interaction between the three that's important. ANDREW NICCOL We are in an age where we know far more than we can cure. How does it help you to know you are going to develop Alzheimer's disease if you can't do anything about it? The knowledge may, however, help an employer decide whether or not to hire you — or fire you. The knowledge could also help an insurance company decide if they're going to cover you. We also face many ethical dilemmas. Few would argue with the benefits of eliminating inheritable diseases. But is baldness a disease? Is shyness? Sex selection is already very common, but while you're at it, why not make your son 6-4 and give him blue eyes and a tendency toward music? There is a blurred line between health and enhancement. ERIC LANDER Very often, the public thinks that molecular biologists have the power to do anything. They hear about the awesome power of molecular biology, but in fact where molecular biology has that awesome power is very uneven. This is wonderful, powerful stuff, but it's not magic. Molecular biology is the art of piggybacking on what evolution has already figured out. We sit at the feet of the bacteria, the fungi, the lymphocytes. We take lessons from life. Evolution is very patient. It's worked things out over the course of three and half billion years and we're reading its lab notes. You want to make a fly with two sets of wings and not one? No problem because the fly has an organ behind its wings, which evolutionarily used to be a wing, and there are mutations that will reprogram it to being a wing. But if you wanted to put in a third set of wings, that would require re-engineering the whole system. And we don't have a clue how to do that. We're pretty good at aping solutions, so to speak, but we're not so great at inventing truly novel solutions. Evolution is very inventive in doing a lot with the same tool kit, and we don't understand a lot about that yet, either. We don't have the ability to build anything that evolves. If you put together an engineering committee to develop a highly flexible, evolvable system, it would never have anything like the performance of the DNA-based living systems in being able to adapt to so many niches in the environment. And at a deep level, we don't understand why this basis of life is so successful. If I got to have dinner with nature and to ask one question, this is what I would be asking: Tell me how it is that the DNA-basis of life gives rise to such extraordinary flexibility. If there is one thing that would be most exciting to learn over the next 50 years, it would be that. DAN W. BROCK I think that there will be the potential down the line — not soon, but eventually — for the genetic enhancement of individuals. What people will be interested in enhancing are behavioral traits like memory, intelligence, musical or math ability, sociability. I have no doubt that there are genetic contributors to these traits, and, once the research has been done and cautions put in place, I don't think there are principled reasons to rule out all nontherapeutic genetic interventions, as some European countries have suggested doing. The demand will be too high to hold them back. When we finally reach the point of genetic interventions for social traits, it will truly test our commitment to equality of opportunity. If enhancements are available only to the better-off nations and individuals of the world, existing social and economic inequalities may widen into chasms. Are we simply going to let that happen? We must address these potentially profound problems. Back in the 70's, there was a fair amount of discussion among ethicists about reproductive cloning, until scientists said, Don't waste our time and yours, this is science fantasy, and the debate stopped. Then Dolly came along, and here we are in the thick of it.
People with genetic diseases, with Huntington's, are so stigmatized. They can't tell their friends. They can't tell their employers. They can't tell their insurers. They become damaged DNA, mutant DNA. In the beginning, when there wasn't any way of knowing, 99 percent of all at-risk people worldwide said they wanted to know. Now, in the United States less than 3 percent have been tested.
I do think that that maybe the environment is getting a bit lost in all the hoopla over genetics. Behaviors, including mental illnesses like schizophrenia and some aspects of personality and intelligence, are not single gene disorders. Specific genes can serve as early warning systems for the development of problems. But I think it's going to end up leading to environmental engineering rather than genetic engineering. For example, with shyness, if you knew you had a kid with a genetic propensity for shyness or schizophrenia or alcoholism, you could intervene early. LENNETTE J. BENJAMIN Sickle cell disease is one of the most understood genetic diseases.
But gene therapy is still a laboratory experiment. Genetic research on
sickle cell disease has done more to help other diseases than has
translated into benefits for sickle cell patients. To some extent, we
have to go back and play catch-up.
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