DNA Programmers & Bio Hackers

"We're heading into an era where people will be writing DNA programs like the early days of computer programming, but who will own these programs?"

Today a scientist can write a long genetic program on a computer just as a maestro might compose a musical score, then use a synthesizer to convert that digital code into actual DNA. Experiments with "natural" DNA indicate that when a faux chromosome gets plopped into a cell, it will be able to direct the destruction of the cell's old DNA and become its new "brain" -- telling the cell to start making a valuable chemical, for example, or a medicine or a toxin, or a bio-based gasoline substitute.

By this time next year, the first living cells with fully artificial genomes could be growing.

So, which do you think legislators should most fear, bio-terror or bio-error? Check the Washington Post for more details on the status of mankind's creation of artificial life.

Another GM Warning

"What we’ve got in Europe is a regulatory system that increasingly says cars are dangerous, you might get knocked over by a car, so we’d better ban automobiles. That is the logical conclusion of the way we see the regulatory system being applied today, and it’s an extremely worrying trend."

So one of the world's most senior agricultural business leaders, Michael Pragnell, the chief executive of Syngenta, describes Europe's "increasingly policitised regulatory environment" in an interview for today's Times. Pragnell warns that new European rules potentially banning many pesticides and a failure to embrace genetically modified crops risk a reduction in crop yields of between 35 and 40 per cent across Europe, which would drive up food prices and increase the pressure on land usage at a time when world population is expected to soar by another two billion over the next twenty years. Like Professor Sir David King, who steps down as the Government's chief scientist at the end of the year, he is urging ministers to abandon their neutral stance on GM crops and campaign in favour of the technology.

GM Crop Results Scandal

What are politicians to do when scientific studies undermine their political stances? One option would be to admit their previous judgement was mistaken. Another is to cover up the studies...

Just a month since France ran into trouble with the European Commission over its proposed freeze on the planting of genetically modified crops, we now learn that government officials in Italy have for two years been suppressing the results of field trials on a genetically engineered strain of maize showing that compared with conventional varieties, the GM crop has both a higher yield (by 28-43%) and significantly lower levels of toxins (less than 1% the fumonisin content, which appears to cause neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida).

As Peter Mandelson noted earlier this year, "We need an open and rational debate about the risks and benefits of biotechnology more than ever... We must be under no illusion that Europe's interests are served by being outside a global market that is steadily working its way through the issues raised by GM food. They are not."

UPDATE: Interesting to see the IHT is reporting that the European agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, has today warned farm ministers that resistance in Europe to imports of genetically modified products is contributing to the rising cost of raising pigs and chickens, and could pose a threat to the meat industry.

For further details, see Truth About Trade & Technology

Dolly Scientist's U-Turn

The Government must be kicking itself. Just two months after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave its go-ahead for the creation of human-animal embryos for research, Professor Ian Wilmut, the leading scientist who controversially created Dolly the sheep, is abandoning the cloning of human embryos in favour of a rival method developed in Japan that he says has greater potential for stem cell research than the use of embryonic cells.

If only the politicians had heeded the scientific advice they were given at the time detailing questions over the actual possible usefulness of these entities and the lack of evidence for any current scientific reasons to create them.

GM Growth Challenge

Last week the European Commission warned President Nicolas Sarkozy that a proposed temporary freeze on the planting of genetically modified crops in France contravenes European law and today we learn that the area planted with such crops in Europe increased by 77% last year, giving the biotech industry cause to claim this proves their product is appealing to farmers and safe for the environment.

In the current issue of The Difference, retired animal geneticist John Hodges asks what risk cloned meat and milk might present to consumers, expresses fears that unknown abnormalities may be transferable to humans through food as happened with Mad Cow Disease (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD), and calls upon the UK and the EU parliaments to take an independent position on cloned-animal products for human consumption:

"The decision not to label is contrary to the economic principle that markets work effectively when decisions are made by customers with access to full information – “the customer is right”. This whole scenario is unethical and has the flavour of vested business interests successfully pressuring government quickly to approve their desired objective. One suspects they know that hypothetical polls have already shown consumer resistance. Further, the limited tests do not offer authentic scientific guarantees of food safety for a novel technique whose long-term hazards upon the whole population are unknown. Normal ethical standards for such an important issue cry out for public debate, for legislative rather than delegated executive action, for science relevant to the risk and for consumers’ rights and wishes to be respected. The issues are too important to be left to the ideology of market forces alone."

Let us know what you think — and if you haven't seen Hodges' article, order your copy of The Difference today!

DNA Database Debate

At the start of the month, Lord Justice Sedley described the national DNA database as indefensible, unfair and inconsistent and called for the DNA of every citizen to be included. Then last week the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a report suggesting that police should only be allowed to store permanently bioinformation from people who are convicted of a crime and that the potential benefits of establishing a population-wide forensic DNA database would not be great enough to justify the cost and intrusion to privacy at the current time. So who's right?

A poll was conducted for tonight's Panorama, Give Us Your DNA, indicating that 66% of the population would be in favour of everyone's DNA being sampled when they reached the age of 18, but that 64% would oppose samples being taken at birth. Thus, the programme suggested, the main objection against a universal DNA database is simply its being impolitic, rather than in any way inefficient. However, a senior forensic scientist who is the Director of Forensic Institute, Professor Allan Jamieson, believes that people put too much faith in DNA and are giving it an infallibility which it does not have. As he explained to the interviewer, "We've shaken hands. My DNA will be on your hand. You may touch something outside of this room that I have never touched, and therefore my DNA will be somewhere where I have never been."

As a geneticist, I would have few reservations about equipping the police with a tool that has proven invaluable in helping them to solve crimes, so long as adequate safeguards were in place to protect against the possibility of mistaken identity — such as not allowing cases to proceed where DNA alone is the only evidence. After all, even fingerprints, which cannot be carried off by anyone else, are not infalliable determiners of identity, as the case of PC Shirley McKie proved ten years ago.

In the current climate of CCTV, biometric passports and identity cards, however, and with our country already increasing resembling a police state or surveillance society, I cannot see how any expansion of the existing database could be achieved without damaging the relationship between citizens and the police, between people and government. No longer innocent until proven guilty, citizens treated with dignity and respect, we increasingly risk being reduced to potential suspects to be monitored and controlled by every means at every junction. Yet, healthy relationships are surely key to the social well-being of society, just as they are to the social well-being of individuals. Therefore, unless we want to lose what remains of our community structures, we must resist any moves towards a national DNA database.

Possible Usefulness of Cybrid Embryos

15:30 Breaking News: As expected, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has given the go-ahead for the creation of human-animal embryos for research. The Government's U-turn follows an HFEA consultation that apparently showed the public were "at ease" with the idea when told it could pave the way for therapies for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

Which rather begs the question, as well as being told about some of the theoretical possible benefits, were the public also told about the even more probable risks? For, contrary to the impression given by some of those who argue in favour of creating human-nonhuman cybrids (cytoplasmic hybrids), some of the most relevant questions relating to the ethical discussion arise not from a consideration of human dignity or any religious grounds but rather from a scientific perspective and the actual possible usefulness of these entities.

In this regard, a report by BioCentre, The New Inter-Species Future?, made the following points:

1. Experiment needs confirming

The scientific merit and validity of experiments already undertaken (involving cow-human and rabbit-human hybrid embryos) remain to be confirmed by an independent research group repeating the procedures.

2. Interspecies mitochondrial-nuclear DNA dysfunction

The medical risks of implanting cells that contain a combination of animal and human mitochondrial DNA and human nuclear DNA are considerable, given that there are varying degrees of interspecies incompatibility between mitochondrial and nuclear functions. Furthermore, it should be noted that mitochondrial dysfunction has been discovered to be a key factor in many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Since many of the diseases claimed to be treatable by therapeutic cloning are neurodegenerative, using stem cells from human-nonhuman cybrids would be liable to result in profound medical risks. Similarly, the use of such stem cells to treat heart or liver complaints could create a number of difficulties owing to the high level of mitochondrial activity in these organs.

3. Difficulty in interpreting results

Regarding the use of human-nonhuman cybrids for research into diseases, there are so many profound genetic and epigenetic flaws in cloned embryos (even using eggs of the same species), that to use embryos created by interspecies nuclear transfer would be liable to become a study of artefacts. In other words, it would be difficult to interpret the results. The potential of an experiment, to add to the sum of knowledge is only as good as its capacity for interpretation.

4. Risk of creating new diseases

There would also be risks of transmission of animal diseases to humans or the creation of new diseases if any of the cybrid embryos were implanted into a host or not kept in a bio-secure environment.

5. Immunological incompatibility

Finally, it should be noted that it is doubtful whether the cells arising from human-nonhuman cybrids, in which an animal egg is used would become more human with development from the perspective of immunological compatibility and could ever have clinical applications. Because of this, and other factors, it is extremely unlikely that they would be used for transplantation in human patients.

Ethical Science

It's not every day that I agree with something Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, says. So, his defence of what he calls "The coal face of applied science in the twenty first century," biotechnology, is worth quoting from quite extensively:

"We need an open and rational debate about the risks and benefits of biotechnology more than ever."

"We are already living in a biotech era – from the medicine you take to the laundry detergent you use. ... The most recent Eurobarometer on this subject from 2005 actually showed that most Europeans are enthusiastic about potential new applications of biotechnology. But there is one glaring exception. Something like six in ten Europeans say they oppose Genetically Modified food."

"It is reasonable to insist that when the process [of thoroughly testing all new biotech products to the most rigorous scientific standards] has run its course, and the scientific issues have been thrashed out, we stand by the science. And that applies to both the technical experts and to the politicians they report to. A rigorous system means approving GM imports when the science is on their side just as we take a firm line when precaution is justified. ... If politicians and risk managers undermine their own system... we devalue objective science as our most important benchmark - and that is a dangerous step to take."

"We must be under no illusion that Europe's interests are served by being outside a global market that is steadily working its way through the issues raised by GM food. They are not."

"The biotech industry needs to keep in mind that while technology determines what is possible, consumer demand determines what is economically viable. Public fears may be misplaced, but they cannot and should not be dismissed."

"The way that human technologies affect us and the natural world has always been a flashpoint for debate. Biotechnology is no different. The only rational response is a patient assessment of the evidence and a careful explanation of the facts. Biotechnology has already improved millions of lives around the world. That alone is reason enough to ensure that we do not deny those benefits to millions more."

The only point that I would add is he makes no mention of ethics. If the public believe there are ethical questions to answer, even if the scientists and politicians do not, then the "open and rational debate" and "careful explanation of the facts" needs to address those fears also.