The most difficult issue ahead is whether we should do germline gene therapy. In other words, do you want to improve the human race in at positive way…to remove serious genetic disease from families for example? We are somewhat reluctant to see it begin because we don’t know where it will end.” American scientist James Watson, is well placed to understand the implications of his words. Forty years ago Watson and his British colleague Francis Crick, discovered the double helix structure of the DNA molecule, which carries our genetic information. The two Nobel laureates explained how genetic material is copied and transmitted to offspring, opening up the science of molecular genetics.

Watson, 65, and Crick, 77, were among 300 luminaries, including 12 other Nobel Prize winners, who met at UNESCO from April 21-23 to celebrate the 40th birthday of the discovery. They reviewed the achievements, looked at future directions, and raised the troubling issue of bioethics. “What is the use of genetic testing?” asked Noelle Lenoir, chairperson of a scientific and technical group advising UNESCO on the creation of an International Consultative Committee on Bioethics. “Who shall have access to information from tests? Should society enforce tests?”

“I think some laws will be necessary to ensure privacy of genetic information.” Watson told journalists covering the event. “Right now an insurance company in the USA can check your blood for cholesterol and then take a look at your genome, People have to be assured that that’s illegal. As for: laws saying what sort of experiments we should do, I would be on the whole against that. It slows research and the utilization of discoveries.”

The scientist believes the public is not yet ready to deal with the issues. “We’re talking about genetic diseases and changes in genetic material when the general public does not really accept the fact of Darwinian evolution But genetic diagnosis is coming conceivably over the next 100 years because so many people will benefit from it.”

Apart from eradicating genetic disease, he says, genetic diagnosis could also be used to immunize humans against viruses, as tobacco can be made resistant to the mosaic virus. “If ever we were faced with something that threatened our existence – if AIDS was 100 times more infectious for example-should we not have a bag of genetic tricks’ that could prevent our extinction?”

-Sue Williams.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 2, 1994