Playing God with Monsters

Howard writes "Horrified by "There Be Monsters Here" tales, some members of Congress called for a ban on DNA research in the mid '70s. Because those calls were rejected, millions of people around the world can now hope for DNA-based vaccines against AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases that have destroyed lives, communities and nations. Here's an illustration: The name of Joseph DeRisi keeps coming up in connection with deadly diseases. No, he's not a modern-day Typhoid Mary. Just the opposite. The University of California, San Francisco researcher is using his own custom-built DNA microarrays to look inside the "minds" of some serious serial killers. The "minds" are genes, and his home-brewed gene chips helped solve the SARS mystery earlier this year. Now, DeRisi has chosen malaria as his next victim. For the complete commentary, please go to Howard Lovy's NanoBot."

Comments

genetics revolution

[chloroquine]

I am a molecular biologist. I regularly read the news about criticisms of genetic engineering and stem cell research. I think that perhaps I should spend more time talking to my non-science friends about the positive things that have come from genetic engineering - insulin, the genetic testing (Tay Sachs screening is a good example), and so on. It is nice to read of more good examples in a not-completely biology setting.

Banning Research

[darkstar949]

With any luck these advances can be pointed out to those whom want to ban various froms of research in the future. Hopefully, people can come to realise that no research is "bad" or "evil", it just depends upon how the research is applied.

*Where* there be monsters?

[watchful.babbler]

While it's true that Congress wanted to ban (or sharply curtail) genetic research in the 1970s, it was the self-policing of the scientific community (at the Asilomar Conference) that convinced Congress not to enact legislative bans on the research. Asilomar showed that scientists were concerned about the ethical and public policy effects of their research, rather than being the Dr. Frankensteins so many members of the press and the anti-scientific left painted them to be.

What we lack today is the same kind of scientific consensus-building process in ethical and policy matters. The inability of the research community to show that it cares about the moral, legal, political and social effects of its work has led to greater political scrutiny of that research, and acts such as the Executive Order limiting research into stem cells.

So, to raise the obvious question, what chance do we have for another Asilomar? Can the scientific establishment convince the public that it's not hell-bent on progress at any price, or is modern bio-science too fragmented, too much a creature of academic, corporate, and social specialization to speak with a united voice again?

Cancer article at Wired

[john_smith_45678]

There's a good article at Wired about the current state of affairs in the battle against cancer.

The End of Cancer (As we Know it)

Diagnosis. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Slow painful death. No more. A new era of cancer treatment is dawning. Meet three scientists who are using the revelations of the Human Genome Project to reshape medicine.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/cancer.ht ml?pg=2

They talk about micro-arrays, among other things.

Re:Stem cell research

[the_flatlander]

Our Fearless Leader told us stem-cell research and human cloning would be morally wrong. (Dropping bombs on Afgan and Iraqii civilians, well, that's okay.) The first thing moralist do is attack any new science. Galleo wound up in trouble for proposing that the Earth orbited the sun. (Oddly, eventual wide acceptance of that information did not lead to the fall of the Church.) It is the [unpleasant] duty of scientists to ignore the politicians, and pursue the clues Nature provides.

Speaking as a representative for seial killers

[Ryvar]

Speaking as a representative for seial killers everywhere, I for one find the wording of this post offensive. No mere simple biological 'machine' could replicate the beauty and artistry of my vast bodies of work in the field of serial killing.

I for one hope Slashdot's editors issue an apology and a retraction.

Finally...

[Guano_Jim]

...the world will know the glory of the FIVE-ASSED MONKEY!

Or maybe not. Call your congresspeoples and demand your five-assed monkey.

What is humanity?

[TuringTest]

Is humanity determined by the specific genotype you happen to have now? Any more that by your fenotype? If you do a aesthetic surgery, you are changing yourself into something that you couldn't naturally be. That too would make you less human?

Changing your life habits to live longer and healthier don't make you less human. If that goal is achieved by changing your genes, would it be different? Or if you are made physically stronger so you don't need a fork lift truck to carry packages and now can do it manually, is that so important?

Care to bet?

[Henry V .009]

Anybody willing to make a bet with me on whether more people will be killed by genetically engineered weapons than are saved by genetically engineered cures during the 21st century?

Re:Stem cell research

[quantaman]

I for one want a leader with the balls to stand up for what s/he thinks is right.

I do too, I just don't like it when they impose their views on their country. Recently the mayor of Edmonton Bill Smith had a press conference. He was very emotional and went on about how he felt homosexulality was morally wrong and went against everything he was brought up to believe in. He then said it was his duty as mayor to have gay pride parades. Similarly with gay marriages quite a number of officials from the Catholic church said that any politicians who allowed gay marriages would burn in hell. Prime Minister Cretien said that his first duty was as Prime Minister and is in the process of allowing them (well the courts already did that parliment is drafting legislation now, it's a long story). The thing is that in both cases the leader stated their beliefs and stood up for them but did not impose that belief upon their constituents, that's the kind of leader I feel most comfertable with.

Re:Stem cell research

[Lars T.]

Very nice. Now for some facts. [Excerpt]

In 1632, Galileo completed his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems -- Ptolemaic & Copernican. This publication, a twelve year effort, presented all the arguments for and against the two great world systems--the Copernican (sun centered) and the Aristotelian or Ptolemaic (earth centered). Galileo also warned the Church of a trap they were walking into:

"Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions relating to the fixity of sun and earth you run the risk of eventually having to condemn as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position--eventually, I say, at such a time as it might be physically or logically proved that the earth moves and the sun stands still."[16]

The Roman Catholic hierarchy and their Aristotlean-Ptolemaic advisors did not heed this advice. The Roman Curia promptly banned and confiscated Galileo's monumental work; and it became the basis for his second trial, censure, and lifetime house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1633. The Roman Catholic Church convicted him of breaking his agreement of 1616 and of teaching the Copernican theory as a truth and not a hypothesis. They suspected him of holding heretical opinions condemned by the Church, which they ordered him to abjure [abandon a false opinion]. Seven of the ten Cardinals presiding signed his condemnation.[17]

The Holy Tribunal in Galileo's condemnation states: "The proposition that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture. The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world and immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically, and theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith."[18]

Sure, compared to burning him at the stake, this was a nice treatment. And not only was he on "at the top of the seventeenth-century bestsellers list", but also on the Roman Church's Index of Prohibited Books until 1835. Last but not least, it took the Roman Catholic Church until 1981 to finaly pardon Galileo. Sure, some church officials including the Pope liked him - yet they didn't do much to help him, nor did they prevent that no Catholic was allowed to read his work for 200 years.