Genetic engineering: a dangerous frontier

Press, 23 February 1977, Page 20

Genetic engineering: a dangerous frontier

By

ANTHONY TUCKER.

in the “Guardian”

After years of widespread public criticism, genetic engineering is regaining its stride. Programmes in laboratories across the United States are taking off fast under the new United States National Institute of Health guidelines. In Europe geneticists are now getting to work on their delayed plans under new controls established separately after coordination by their various countries.

It is three years since Professor Paul Berg blew the whistle on geneticists in America, and some are now regretting the cost of scientific responsibility. The press depicted responsible scientists as monster creators and propagated grotesquely distorted impressions of their research. the genetic engineers say. By focusing public attention on the need to assess hazards, science and scientists have suffered harm, important research has been delayed, and the lesson — for scientists in other disciplines — is to blow the whistle quietly and only pm/.nu friends

That would be a highly unfortunate outcome. The outcry, which in Britain has led to two expert committees being set up — one to assess whether hazards existed and the second to lay down procedures to avoid them — and will ultimately involve legislation over proper laboratory procedures, arose from the newly-won ability of microbial geneticists to chop genes up and insert fragments of genetic information from one kind of creature into the genetic material of another. Capabilities and characteristics can thus be transferred from one kind of organism to another with some obvious dangers such as the accidental donation of cancercausing capabilities to a robust and common species of organism which, once out of the laboratory might annihilate an unprotected public. Such dangers are minimised under the commonly agreed guidelines by specifying the containment and organisms that can be used for experiments. By using strains which could not survi”-’ in the wild, geneticists

can safely pursue the object of their research, which is to find out precisely which fragments of genetic material have what functions, and to graft genetic traits from one species on to another in a useful way. The first aim of scientists, as was pointed out by the chairman of the International Microbial Genetic Commission, Dr S. W. Glover, is to introduce into the world’s major crop plants, especially, cereals, the ability to fix their own nitrogen. This would not ony massively increase yields in developing countries but eliminate the need for nitrogen fertilisers. It might also be possible to modify and improve the photosynthetic capabilities of plants, and even to use outside plants the biochemical information underlying photosynthesis. In medicine, it may be possible to isolate the genetic information to produce insulin or hormones of many kinds, and make these rare but valuable substances in larger quantities by arming microbes with the information and setting them to work for us. A whole range of possibilities, including the

production of antibodies for common diseases, lie ahead for scientists.

The potential of research seems enormous and, with the guidelines set and a series of new national and international bodies watching for potential hazards, genetic engineers are getting back to their benches as if all the important questions have been asked and answered.

They have not. The great genetic engineering outcry has been about immediate hazards, about the proper way to carry out particular kinds of experiment, and about the balance between gains and risks. But there are much bigger and more difficult questions which have not been asked at all during the United States debate and have barely been

touched upon in Europe, yet which need to be fully debated.

The powers with which mankind is arming itself by gaining ever deeper understanding of genetics arc awesome in a way which has nothing whatever to do with accidental monstrous products. They will give mankind the ability to govern the genetic destiny of his own and other species yet, as some are beginning to say with force, man demonstrably does not possess the wisdom for such a task. As the Vice-Chancellor of the University of California, Professor Clifford Grobstein, asks, will genetic engineering widen or narrow the gap between knowledge-rich and knowledge-poor nations? Will it provide new and terrible weapons in the hands

of dictatorial regimes or terrorists'? Will it render more turbulent the nearly uncontrollable currents of inter national power conflict? Is it even safe, in the present state of human societies, to provide the means far men to intervene in the very essence of human individuality?

If most of the answers are “No," and if, since no structures exist to ensure only beneficial uses, the moral, ethical and political issues are important, then a second phase of the gentic engineering debate needs to begin — and quickly. We may be about to embark on a long trail towards what may look to be a triumph of intelligence but which, in the end (as someone once said of the space race), is a tragic failure of reason.