“It is at least premature to think about engineering the human genome,” said Dr. Eric Lander, a mathematician who has made important contributions to gene sequencing technology. “It is a text we have only been reading for two years.”
Lander’s theme in his keynote address to the Gairdner Foundation’s Genome Symposium was twofold. First, he predicted some of the benefits of our growing understanding of the genetic material that programs each cell in our bodies.
With genome research, “we can finally “look under the hood” in medicine, finding causal mechanisms for disease instead of just making inferences from observed symptoms. The genetic factors that affect cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS and a host of other diseases are indeed being unlocked and will lead to new drugs and new treatments.
The human genome, said Lander, is “the library in which evolution has been taking notes.” With it, we can begin to understand our ties to the rest of life on Earth.
The second part of Lander’s speech concerned the perils of our newfound knowledge.
He warned against assuming genetic discoveries mean practical solutions are just around the corner. “Understanding mechanisms doesn’t immediately mean cures,” he said.
An attitude of genetic determinism must also be avoided. While genes give us predispositions, “we can’t wash our hands of choices,” he said. Genes alone don’t make a person.
Asked where genome research will take humanity in the next hundred years, Lander insisted that the honest answer is “We have no idea.” While we have a moral obligation to discover and use our knowledge as best we can, we must recognize that we don’t fully understand the implications of technological progress. This applies not just to biology or to science, Lander said, but to all of life.
After Lander’s address, 2002 Nobel laureates Dr. Sydney Brenner and Sir John Sulston and ethicist Dr. Bartha Knoppers formed a panel that took up the discussion.
Brenner said “too much of this [genome research] effort has been devoted to the well-being and future of the great pharmaceutical companies of the world,” while “too little has been devoted to the actual intellectual challenge.”
In the same vein, Sulston warned against allowing material interests to take control of science and society.
“Free enterprise is a good servant, but a very very bad master,” he said. He insisted that all genome data must be made freely available.
Knoppers argued that public health organizations should be allowed to use genetic screening for the public good. But she won more applause for the poem she recited in honour of Lander (see sidebar).
Photograph by Simon Turnbull
