Recently, there was a call for a global treaty, modeled after the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to regulate human genetic engineering. The reference to nuclear weapons immediately called to mind the current global situation, with “rogue” states defying international calls to halt their nuclear development programs. It’s easy to envision a future with a recalcitrant state carrying out a program of human genetic engineering in violation of the so-called Genetic Heritage Safeguard Treaty. Certainly top Pentagon scientists have raised this issue. But is a 20th century solution really the best way to solve a distinctly 21st century problem?
Without dueling superpowers to keep the smaller nations in line, non-proliferation has already started to breakdown. That goes to show that a 20th century solution can’t solve a distinctly 20th century problem in the 21st century. In addition, the technology for human genetic engineering, once developed, will be far easier to conceal from inspectors and satellite reconnaissance than the equipment required to produce nuclear weapons. Thus, enforcement will be much more difficult, even with ostensibly cooperative nations. Enforcement also relies on powerful nation-states, which may be another relic of the 20th century thanks to emerging neofeudalism.
We do need global regulation of human genetic engineering, but it’s vitally important that we not reject world-changing innovations just because they’re new or scary. Genetic engineering isn’t Frankenstein. We need to look at the situation, as much as we can, in terms of what someone in the year 2100 would want us to do and not just have a knee-jerk, 20th century reaction.
Researchers at Cornell Medical Center in New York have genetically modified a human embryo (additional coverage from The New York Times). While the embryo was not viable due to a chromosomal imbalance, the work has drawn fire from watchdog groups concerned about “designer babies.” I found a quote from Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., particularly interesting:
“We’re not even close to having that technology in hand to be able to do it right,” she said, and it would be ethically unacceptable to try it when it’s unsafe.
That’s a bit of a myopic statement. She seems to be saying that we’ll never develop the techniques because it’s unethical to use them if they’re unsafe, but they can’t be made safe without testing them. The very existence of the story, however, shows that at least one ethics committee in this country approved of using unproven techniques on non-viable embryos. That’s one avenue to perfecting the necessary tools, and there may be others.
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When you hear the term “synthetic biology,” it conjures up images of superbugs and pandemic plagues reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Stand or Operation Dark Winter. Some of the most prominent minds in the nascent field are crucially aware of this public perception and are trying to counteract it. Take the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition as an example. When I was in grad school, we referred to it as “bug wars,” but organizer Draw Endy put the kibosh on that precisely because it sounds like the work of bioterrorists rather than legitimate scientists.
Beyond the name, iGEM serves as a showcase for what synthetic biology can currently do. Artificial blood that can be freeze-dried and rehydrated when needed. Biofuel production. The winning entry—bacteria that automatically assign roles rather than having to be individually tailored—is more akin to a compiler for software source code than traditional biotechnology. This is just today; imagine what could be possible in five or ten years.
Endy and colleagues are not just starry-eyed dreamers. As you can hear on NPR’s Science Friday [hat tip: Futurismic], Endy encourages open discussion of our concerns. Not just amongst scientists but across society and across the world. Even by the standards of academic science, the practitioners of synthetic biology are very open about their ideas, their research, and their discoveries. They understand the dangers of the technology, but they also know that you can’t suppress it. By encouraging openness and sharing, scientists can stay ahead of the bad guys. Not only can we anticipate what a superbug might be and how to respond, we can develop the cure before it ever arrives.
Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, famously stated that the number of transistors in a computer chip will double every 18 months. This trend has held for the last fifty years and will continue for the next decade. At that point, engineers will start to run into the physical limits of the photolithography methods used to manufacture computer chips. They will no longer be able to squeeze more transistors onto a chip, and Moore’s Law will have run its course. But if we reformulate Moore’s Law to state that computing power will double every 18 months, or even every 24 months, then there’s no end in sight.
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