Biotech Ethics

Someone (I can’t recall the source) once said that rather than envy the creative power of nature, we ought to emulate it. Genetic algorithms have, for a couple of decades now, allowed scientists and engineers to harness the power of evolutionary processes to evolve (literally) new solutions to hard problems in silico. A new technology developed by George Church at Harvard seems aimed at allowing scientists to do the same thing in vitro.

Here’s the story, by Arielle Fridson, writing for Bloomberg: Harvard Scientists Speed Up Evolution, Aim to Sell Technology to DuPont

Evolution often plays out over millennia. George Church says he can make it happen in days.

He and his team of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston invented a table-top machine that can generate multiple changes in the DNA of bacteria all at once, speeding up the evolutionary process. Aiming to sell the technology for use in chemicals, energy, and the drug industry, they’re talking with DuPont Co. and other companies, members of the team said….

This of course is pretty much the exact opposite of the kind of genetic engineering that makes use of careful insertion of genes with known functions. It allows a kind of generate-and-test procedure: generate a bunch of mutations, and see which ones do what you wanted them to do. This allows for enormous creativity, as the literature on genetic algorithms attests. (Back in grad school, I fiddled with G.A.’s and ecological programming a bit, and got to watch novel — and sometimes radically weird — solutions to hard problems literally evolve.) Along with this creativity also comes risk, when the things evolving are potential pathogens. Church is right to worry (as the Bloomberg story notes he does) about the potential for misuse.

Over at my Food Ethics Blog, I’ve got a new (short) posting about cloning animals for food: Milk and Meat from the Offspring of Clones.

(Not surprisingly, given that this is 2010, there’s turning out to be a fair bit of overlap between that blog and this one, as the months go by.)

All I’ve got to add here is this: it’s interesting (worrisome, to some) that “cloned foods” (loosely speaking) are entering the food chain by stealth. So, fodder for discussion: is this a good or bad thing for biotech, generally?

Check out this blog entry over at my new Food Ethics Blog: Cloned Animals, Food, Ethics.

The short version: attempts by European Parliamentarians to ban food from cloned animals was predictable, and based on what look to be pretty terrible reasons.

A lot has been written about the risks & mostly theoretical & associated with genetic testing. Genetic information is highly personal, often difficult to understand, subject to considerable interpretation, and of widely variable predictive power. Two main kinds of worries arise. One pertains to how the individual will react to genetic information about him- or herself. Another pertains to how others & including employers, insurers, etc. & will react to it.

But there’s an interesting twist, here. Part of the risk of genetic data lies in how that data is interpreted, and how it’s interpreted depends in part upon what kinds of studies have been done on the relevant bit of genetics. The fact that you happen to have a certain string of DNA is meaningless until interpreted in light of relevant scientific studies. But here’s the problem. If you get tested today, and get your test results next week, new information released next month may alter the interpretation of those results. That may change the risk you face.

The result is that at least some of the risks posed by a genetic test are entirely outside of the control of the company that sells that test. That’s pretty odd, as product safety goes. Who determines just how safe a chainsaw is? The maker of that chainsaw. Who determines how many safety features are built into a new car? The maker of that car. Who determines the risk of a genetic test? That’s much harder to answer.

Gone are the days when a college student’s first exposure to genetics came after the first day of school, in a biology class.

U.C. Berkeley is offering (or should I say “offering”) genetic testing to a few thousand freshmen this year.

Here’s the story, by Tamar Lewin, in the New York Times: College Bound, DNA Swab in Hand

Instead of the usual required summer-reading book, this year’s incoming freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley, will get something quite different: a cotton swab on which they can, if they choose, send in a DNA sample.

The university said it would analyze the samples, from inside students’ cheeks, for three genes that help regulate the ability to metabolize alcohol, lactose and folates.

Why?

Those genes were chosen not because they indicate serious health risks but because students with certain genetic markers may be able to lead healthier lives by drinking less, avoiding dairy products or eating more leafy green vegetables.

This is bound to raise concerns. Yes, the testing is voluntary. But the risk is that many students won’t read the fine print, and will worry (perhaps irrationally) that failure to comply will be held against them. And, as with all genetic tests, there’s the risk that students will misunderstand the results. Questions are also bound to arise about whether students will understand the future uses to which their DNA samples (or merely their data) will be put.

As economist Tyler Cowen put it, “Don’t be surprised if this is soon canceled.”