Biotech is raising ethical concerns – we've been here before

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November 5, 2022

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A new book explores 3 abilities that exist today, whether we are ready or not.

Diana Gittig – October 29, 2022 12:08 PM UTC

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Matthew Cobb is a zoologist and author with a background in insect genetics and the history of science. Over the past decade or so, as CRISPR has been discovered and applied to genetic modification, he has become concerned—in fact scared—of three potential applications for the technology. He’s a good partner: Jennifer Doudna, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and use of CRISPR, fears the same thing. So he decided to delve into these topics, and Gods: A Moral History in the Age of Genetics

is the result.

Summarize fear His first concern was the idea of introducing heritable mutations into the human genome. He Jiankui did this on three human female embryos in China in 2018, so the three girls who have the engineered mutation and will pass it on to their children (if allowed) are now about four. Their identities are being kept secret to protect them, but presumably their health is being monitored, and the poor girls have presumably been poked and prodded incessantly by various types of medical experts. The second is the use of gene drives . These allow the gene to copy itself from one chromosome of a pair to the other, so it will be passed on to nearly all offspring. If the gene causes infertility, the gene drive can cause the populations that carry it to go extinct. Gene drives have been proposed as a way to eradicate malaria-carrying mosquitoes and have been tested in the lab, but the technology has not yet been deployed in the field.

While eradication of malaria appears to be A pure good thing, but no one is really sure what the impact on the ecosystem would be if we got rid of all the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. (Of course, humans have wiped out or at least severely depleted entire species before—pigeons, bison, eastern elk, wolves—sometimes on purpose, never realizing the interconnectedness of everything we now have.) Another hurdle comes This is difficult when some local languages don’t have the word “gene”, given the fact that deploying this technology depends on the informed consent of the local population. The third focus is gain-of-function research , these studies produce more transmissible or pathogenic viruses in the laboratory. These studies are said to be conducted to better understand what makes the virus more dangerous, so in an ideal world, we can prepare for the possibility of the virus occurring naturally. Gain-of-function research in 2011 funded by the National Institutes of Health made the very deadly strain of the H5N1 flu virus more likely to spread, leading to a self-imposed research moratorium that ended in stricter regulations (in some countries). These types of research clearly have the potential to create biological weapons, and leaks are not out of the question, even if not malicious. (This type of work is unlikely to cause the COVID-19 pandemic; there is evidence that it was transmitted to humans from wild animals.) The resulting title was taken from Stuart Brand’s “Global Catalog,” in which he wrote: “We Like gods, you might as well get good at it.” Alas, not all gods are magnanimous. Even capable, even less good at it.

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Cobb spends a lot of time as a historian of science The book puts his fears in context. One way he does this is by considering how society responds to the horrific, potentially dangerous and far-reaching advances in genetic manipulation that occurred in the second half of the 20th century, and then compares that to how society responds to the horrific, potentially dangerous, first-half nuclear physics Dangerous and far-reaching progress. He uses the origins from the X-Men comics A change in the story to track how public fear of science has shifted from atoms to genes. In the 1960s, the X-Men acquired their mutation and accompanying powers through radiation exposure; by the 1980s, they were the product of long-ago genetic engineering experiments on extraterrestrial astronomical objects. (If you’re wondering why and how fans tolerate this revamped backstory, check out the “We Are Right” podcast episode about the illusion of change.) The February 1975 Asilomar Conference in California is often seen as a model of self-regulation. At the time, scientists were establishing recombinant DNA technology—the ability to move genes between organisms and express any given gene in bacteria at basically random. Surprisingly, in the middle of these developments, they decided to pause and debate whether and how to proceed. (Such shuffling of genes among species also occurs in nature, but they don’t know it yet.) Cobb writes, “Except for geneticists, no group of scientists has voluntarily suspended their work for fear of possible consequences. Found.”

But A The Siloma meeting did not insist that it was because geneticists were more ethical than other scientists; they were simply responding to the fears that prevailed at the time. Many young researchers with advanced genetic engineering techniques grew up scientifically in the late 1960s when they were protesting the Vietnam War at their universities. Between Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Agent Orange, physicists and chemists watched in horror as the military-industrial complex turned their research into mass death and turned the public against the scientific enterprise. Cobb believes that these emerging molecular biologists want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to them.

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Biotech is raising ethical concerns – we've been here before

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