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				Dr. Gregory Stock On the possibilities and challenges of germline genetic engineering The most powerful change that the biotech revolution will bring about A definition on germline genetic engineering When we talk about germline manipulations we mean manipulations to the germinal cells, the sexual cells: the egg and the sperm. In practice today that means altering the fertilized egg. When you make a genetic alteration in the fertilized egg, the first cell of the embryo, all of those changes will be copied into every single cell of the adult including the sexual cells, so normally they would be passed to future generations, although that is not always necessarily the case. Why is germline genetic engineering so important? Germline genetic engineering cuts to the very core of what it means to be human. It will change the nature of our reproduction and the flow of life from one generation to the next. It is going to bring into question the most basic of human limitations; things like our own life spans and mortality, the things that really anchor us and define us as creatures. It is going to make us confront as well to what extent, how fully, we are determined by our genetics. This is a hot political issue that will be very difficult to deal with, but it is going to become very obvious very soon what the answers are. Finally, it may very well losen the link that binds all people together - their humanness. The ultimate consequence of the biotech revolution is that we are taking control of our own evolution and that we are going to be the drivers of where we go in the future. This is going to create the most intense of struggles between a group who sees this as absolutely repugnant, sort of the invasion of the inhuman, the distruction of all that we value; and another group who sees it as this extraordinary thing that we are doing, this opportunity to transcend the limitations of our own biology. I think this division is going to make today's culture wars look very minor. On why we cannot - and why we should not - hold back the possibilities that the biotech revolution and particularly germline genetic engineering are going to offer First, when there are things that seem really worthwile to people, then they are willing to do them. In fact, these are very seductive things that we are talking about. When it is possible to fight cancer, to increase life span, to fight off diseases, and we have the means to deliver them, for instance by using artificial chromosomes, then there would be a thirst for these things. Second, germline genetic engineering is completely embedded in the main stream of medical research. Whether we pursue it or not, we are going to find things out. There are four realms where progress is going on that will make germline genetic engineering very possible: medicine (e.g. all the work in somatic genetic engineering), fertility/infertility research, animal research and the Human Genome Project. And there are other associated technologies: genomics which is the use of computers to really analyse the results of this kind of work, and gene chip technology, which will allow for a low cost a complete read-out of hundreds of genes so that it would be possible to get a genetic profile almost as easily as doing ordinary bloodwork. Third, to hold things back would put us at much greater risks, because it will deprive us of the opportunity to make mistakes at a stage when these technologies are still very nascent. Some people suggest that we should stop now and wait until we really know how to handle these technologies. I think this is not the way wisdom is obtained. As these kinds of things are far too complex to understand in advance, the way we will obtain wisdom is by feeling our way forward, by making mistakes and learning from these mistakes. Finally, these new technologies will become very cheap. Things can easily be done in laboratories all over the world, with a modest amount of equipment. And given that there are large numbers of people who see what is possible as in their benefit, then I think it is fantasy to imagine that it will not occur. On future issues and reflections on how to deal with them The biggest issue is not whether germline genetic engineering is going to be safe because until it is safe, it will not be embraced by vast numbers of people. The real issue is how it is going to divide us and shake our institutions. Will it widen the gulf between rich and poor? I think that it may. In fact, it is very likely to. But it will open up a much bigger gulf, a real chasm between one generation and the next, which will be much more difficult to deal with. Will it transform our world into something that we are very uncomfortable with? It may very well do that, although it is not clear whether our children will be uncomfortable with that world. In essence, what is occuring and what is going to dramatize the future more than any other technology is that humanity is leaving its childhood and is being called upon to make all sorts of decisions about realms that have hitherto been beyond our reach. There are very difficult, very troubling, very hard decisions to make. We have been asked to play God and we have to get used to it. So the challenges are going to be immense. What is going to happen if life spans were doubled? What would be the relevance of our history when our biology changes, when we are modifying our genes to select personality traits, to enhance intelligence, to pick out other attributes? What is really going to hold us together? These technologies have enormous possibilities, and I believe that we need to think less about whether this is going to happen and more about how, to whom and in what circumstances it should be used; and how we can best deal with it so it serves us rather than inflicts damage upon us. What we have to do is to get the information out and to comunicate these issues very broadly so that people are aware of what is really approaching us. The notion of trying to obtain a sort of a unified, global response to the biotech revolution is not a way to go at an early phase. There should not be restrictions on research (except on some of the pathogenic situations, for instance when it comes to research on diseases like smallpox). With technologies there is always a tendency of trying to control and legislate in advance, even though we do not really understand where these technologies lead us. Their consequences are really extraordinary and you cannot figure them out in advance, because they are very complex in the way they get combined. As for biotechnology, I think the notion of waiting on any legislative interventions is the right step to take at this stage. After more is known you really can imagine how to legislate problems that arise. There is also the possibility of incorporating many things that happen now into existing medical models. Consider, for example, laws that we have about unwanted experimentation upon human beings, about risk-and-reward structures or institutional review boards. These laws are quite adequate to deal with these technologies in their initial phases. And on top of that, they also allow an examination on case by case rather than an elevation of these technologies to symbolic levels; on a case-by-case basis there is much more agreement possible on whether technologies should be used or not. It is only at the symbolic levels that differences become very powerful and create conflicts.
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