If they were at this point in the 1980’s, where are they now?
Gen-Tec laboratories, Pennsylvania, USA
Dr Eugene Marks is a transhumanist. A man who believes the human species is ready for a giant leap in evolutionary progress. He has perfected a type of genetic engineering, called the third way, whereby a deformed body can be regrown. There is only one problem. To accomplish this, the person must die, to be reborn in their new body.
Genetic engineering will change the face of humanity forever, Marks believes. It is only a matter of time.
Or maybe not; there is one man who might be able to at least put the inevitable back several decades, or perhaps stop it entirely.
This desire to perfect the human race stems from a philosophy called eugenics. The term is credited to one Francis Galton, back in 1883. Simply put, it is encouraging what a certain elite segment of society perceives as the best: the healthiest, most intelligent, people, to have children.
But there is a darker side. A group who believe culling, sterilisation and segregation are the answer for those whom this class feel are unfit to breed.
Into this maelstrom comes the cutting, manic energy and genius of Dr Eugene Marks. He leaves Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory and sets up on his own.
But someone is out to stop him. Cardinal Andrew Winter from Philadelphia heads a secret group within the catholic church. They are determined to stop Marks, as Winter sees it, encroaching on God’s territory. Manipulating human genes, human DNA.
Meanwhile, back in the ancient market town of Athlone in midlands Ireland, his nephew is propping up the bar of the Royal Hoey hotel. A former burnt-out psychic catholic priest, Fr John Winter wants nothing to do with his high flying uncle. Until an envelope arrives to Winter’s home: it starts ‘John, if you are reading this, I am probably missing, or dead’.
The Asilomar Conference
‘Whether some great, supreme o’er-ruling Power
Stretch’d forth its arm at nature’s natal hour,
Composed this might whole with plastic skill,
Wielding the jarring elements at will?
Or whether sprung from Chaos’ mingling storm,
The mass of matter started into form?
…
-Man, only –rash, refined, presumptuous Man,
Starts from his rank, and mars creation’s plan.’ (1)
Being a bit like Rumpole of the Bailey, I love ‘plundering sorties into the Oxford Book of Romantic Verse’. It was where I found the above lines, taken from the poem ‘The progress of man’ written in 1798, by poets George Canning and William Gifford, when I was doing research for my first novel, Mutation. I wanted to find a verse that would accurately signpost what lay ahead. It just goes to show, we started pushing the boundaries much further back in time than you might think.
I also love moments in history that have a ‘I wish I was there’ feel. The following is, for me, two of those moments. It was 26 July, 1974. Eleven of the foremost scientists in the emerging field of molecular biology wrote a letter requesting a moratorium on recombinant DNA experiments. The request was successful. This is part of my research for my second book, exploring the issues of genetic modifications and the implications for religion as well as our humanity and the scientific world.
Then in February 1975, at a follow up conference held at Asilomar, California, 140 biologists from seventeen countries discussed the risks coming down the tracks from dangerous recombinant DNA experiments. It didn’t go well. The science press, according to Jeremy Rifkin in his 1998 book “The Biotech Century: the coming age of genetic commerce”, reported that most of the scientists attending were opposed to any regulation on their research.
But this changed on day three, when the attorneys spoke. They warned of the dangers of financial loss in lawsuit’s if the scientists created a ‘bio-hazard’ The final speaker was Professor Harold Green, from George Washington University and he presented a paper called ‘Conventional aspects of the law, and how they sneak up on you in the form, say, of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit’ (Rifkin, ‘Biotech Century’, p. Xi).
The scientists came up with a safety programme that any self respecting science fiction writer would find irresistible (I would imagine) to explore. They agreed to provide laboratory precautions to create a safe physical containment environment for dangerous biohazards. They also created the concept of ‘biological containment’ by agreeing to use weak E. Coli bacterium as hosts for recombinant DNA chimeras. These procedures were written into National Institute of Health guidelines that established four levels of risk.
In August 2018, the Chemical and Engineering News magazine (c@en ] in an interview with the organisers, Paul Berg and David Baltimore, acknowledged that the Asilomar Conference remains the template for forums on the safe and ethical use of biotechnology (2). David Baltimore is a biologist and the former president of the California Institute of Technology. Paul Berg is professor emeritus of biotechnology at Stanford University.
Has any scientist breeched this holy grail? Seemingly not. In reality, let’s hope they never do. But in science fiction I would imagine this would be a great way to explore what could go wrong if scientists created such a biohazard and it escaped into the natural environment. And at least one author has explored this. See my book, Mutation, on the dangers of what could happen when an experiment goes wrong.
Sources: General information: Jeremy Rifkin, “The Biotech Century: the coming age of genetic commerce”, London, 1998.
Poem at top: 1. “The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse”, Oxford, 2002, pp. 135-37.
- Rick Mullin, ‘Ethical questions about using recombinant DNA technology were unavoidable at Asilomar’, (vol 96, Issue 34, 28 Aug, 2018.)in Chemical and Engineering News Magazine (c@en):https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/biotechnology/Ethical-questions-using-recombinant-DNA/96/i34
Roy Hunt's books 