Technology: Good or Evil?
Debbie Anholt

(To help you read this article, you can click on the difficult words to find their definitions.)

Brave New World is a famous novel by Aldous Huxley that tells of a society in which babies are conceived in test tubes and raised under controlled conditions to be exactly the kind of men and women the government wants them to be. How many years will it be before this book is moved from the "fiction" shelves in the library to the "nonfiction" shelves? Certainly, progress in genetic research has made that a fair question to ask.

Not that we have a secret society of scientists out to find ways to "invent" or "manufacture" human life. If such men and women exist, they must be a small minority of scientific workers. Nonetheless, knowledge gained in many forms of pure research is rapidly progressing and accumulating to the point that the possibilities for "creating" or "molding" human life are too obvious to ignore.

The aim of pure or basic research is never to solve specific technical problems, although such solutions often do come about as the result of discoveries in basic research. Pure research tries to find out as much as possible about the nature of our physical world . . . to advance the frontiers of knowledge. Much basic research in biology has recently been directed at understanding the structure and function of the fundamental molecules that make up living systems. Of special interest has been research into the nature and behavior of genes.

Historically, geneticists have explained the transmission of certain characteristics (like hair and eye color) from generation to generation on the basis of "chromosomes" and "genes." We have been able to take pictures of chromosomes, so we know what they look like and how they behave. But no one had seen a "gene" until recently, so there was much discussion as to exactly what a gene was.

Then, a series of breakthroughs in biochemical research moved the whole study of genetics off into a quite different direction. Beginning in the 1950's research seemed to show that a particular class of compounds found in the nuclei of cells was very important in passing on genetic information. These compounds are called the deoxyribonucleic acids, or DNA for short.

Each DNA molecule is made up of a long backbone of sugar fragments bound together by phosphate groups. Hooked on to this backbone at regular intervals are combinations of four organic "bases," guanine, cytosine, adenine, and thymine. The whole molecule looks something like the arrangement shown in Figures 1 or 2.

figure 1:

http://www.chemicalgraphics.com/paul/images/DNA/gem-dna.jpg

figure 2:

http://genetics.gsk.com/graphics/dna-big.gif

The DNA molecule is very complicated. It consists of two strands, twisted around each other In the shape of a double helix.

Scientists now believe that DNA molecules in an organism's body carry the "recipes" that tell the body how to make all the chemical compounds It needs to make and to carry out all the chemical reactions it needs to carry out. In DNA, the combination -C-T-C-T-A-G might mean, to a cell, "make red hair," while the arrangement: -C-T-T-T-A-G- might mean "make black hair."

The actual genetic messages in DNA molecules are very much more complicated than the two examples, although the point they make is a valid one. For example, even the simplest of genetic codes probably contains enough code to fill this whole page with margin-to-margin, top-to-bottom letters.

As incomplete as our understanding of molecular genetics still may be, we already have learned some quite remarkable things. Studies of genetic disorders are an example. A genetic disorder is some bodily condition which a person inherits from her or his parents. Diabetes, for example, is a disorder in which a person's body is unable to metabolize sugar properly. Apparently, the necessary biochemical mechanisms which the body needs to process sugar were just never "born into" the diabetic. One important piece of evidence that diabetes may be a genetic disorder is the regular pattern with which it shows up in certain families, but not in others.

Scientists now believe that the kind of genetic disorder many diabetics have may be nothing more or less than an error in the genetic code-the DNA-in that person's body. For example, instead of having a DNA segment reading, say, -C-G-G-T-A- (meaning "metabolize sugar"), the diabetic may have a segment that reads -C-C-G-T-A-. The body then has no directions for performing one of the crucial functions it is supposed to, metabolizing sugar.

Remarkably, scientists have actually found the specific changes in a DNA molecule that explain certain genetic disorders. Sickle-cell anemia, for instance, is an inherited disorder that occurs among Africans and American blacks. It results when red blood cells collapse to form crescent-shaped bodies rather than normal, spherical ones.

Research now indicates that "sickling" occurs because of an error in one segment of the hemoglobin molecules In the body. Instead of reading: -proline-glutamic acidglutamic acid-lysine- as it should, the incorrect message reads: -proline-valine-glutamic acid-lysine. This one difference among hundreds or thousands of amino acid groups results in the sickling effect.

The benefits of this kind of research are obvious. Since a specific disorder can be traced to a specific arrangement of atoms in a DNA molecule, it should be relatively easy (at least in principle) to correct that illness by an appropriate chemical change. In the case of sickle-cell anemia, as an example, it should be possible to cure the disorder simply by removing the incorrect "valine" group and replacing it with a correct "glutamic acid" group. While this type of genetic surgery has not yet been performed, there is no theoretical reason it could not be.

There is, moreover, an interesting angle to this kind of research. If we have methods for correcting defects in the genetic code that produce disorders, what is to prevent this from going further and changing any part of the genetic message we want to? That is, suppose a pregnant woman discovers that the child she is carrying will have green eyes, and she much prefers blue eyes. What is to prevent her from asking for genetic surgery that would substitute "blue eye" genes for "green eye' genes?

From a technical standpoint, there is nothing to prevent this kind of surgery (except for our current lack of ability for doing so). The longrange implication of this whole argument is that, before too long, it should be possible to have babies produced "on order"; that is, with whatever characteristics the parents may want. Whether that type of service should be available is another question.

The technique for making genetic changes is known as recombinant DNA (rDNA) research. It is used on plants, but it is not now being used on humans. Important changes will have to be made in this process before It can be adapted to the manipulation of human DNA. Some scientists wonder if the process may be too difficult ever to accomplish. Others, while recognizing the difficulty of the task, think it is certainly not impossible and will be achieved eventually.

The process of recombinant DNA research is relatively simple in concept. Learning how to make these changes in practice, however, has turned out to be very difficult. Nonetheless, progress in the field has been-and promises to continue to be-surprisingly rapid. The scientific and economic rewards to those who succeed with recombinant DNA research are likely to be spectacular. Because progress in this field is so rapid, you will need to find out what the current state of affairs is at the time you read this case.

From the moment recombinant DNA research became a reality, scientists have been concerned about the social and ethical implications of their work in this field. One question they ask is what the chances are of producing an entirely new kind of organism. And what if this organism is toxic to humans? And what if the organism were accidentally released from a laboratory? If all these conditions existed, there might be no way to stem a horrible epidemic that would take countless human lives.

Thus, the first few years of recombinant DNA research saw soul-searching and efforts at self-regulation such as had never previously taken place in science.

As more and more successes in recombinant DNA research have been attained, many scientists have shifted their attention from social and ethical questions to economic horizons. In the last 30 years, it has become obvious that recombinant DNA research is going to produce organisms that will revolutionize medical and health care, agriculture, industrial processes, and who knows how many other fields.

As a result, biotechnology corporations have been formed by the dozen to put the procedures of genetic engineering to work in producing new drugs, plant forms, fuels, and other products.

Scientists began to play two roles; researcher and businessperson. New knowledge gained in the laboratory has been put to use almost immediately in the world of business and industry.

The case study for this unit raises a number of the issues discussed in this introduction. These include ethical questions (such as the responsibility a scientist has for the uses to which his or her discoveries and inventions are put by society); social questions (such as the mechanisms by which control-if any-over scientific and technological discoveries is to be exercised); political questions (such as with whom the decision-making authority rests in issues like this one); and economic issues (such as the mechanism by which a controversial, but potentially very profitable discovery can or should be marketed). The Buck Stops Here challenge for this case is fairly open-ended, allowing you to consider as wide a range of these issues as you care to.

Technically, the case assumes certain scientific techniques that are not now available, and may not be for some years. For the sake of argument, assume that these techniques eventually will be developed. Then, in your analysis of the case, concentrate on social, political, economic, and ethical aspects of the question.

Adapted from Science and Social Issues, by David E. Newton, 1992. Reprinted and posted on the internet with permission of the author (8/3/2001).

Created by: Debbie Anholt
Last updated: Nov. 9, 2004