Monday, November 9, 1998

Genetic news looks far past mere politics

Edging its way into newspapers Friday and competing, but just barely, with the post-election analysis was a story of far more import for mankind than anything having to do with the shrinking size of the Republican majority in Congress or President Clinton's uncanny ability to slip past revelations of lies under oath.

The story told of a small biotech company's extraordinary feat of isolating and growing a human cell that, in a manner of speaking, is the mother of almost all the other types of cells you will find in the body.

Does it matter?

Only if you think the ability to design babies to taste matters.

Or that the ability to grow healthy replacement organs inside people matters.

Or that thwarting the aging process matters.

Closer to reality

Now, of course, none of these technological prospects is a sure-fire consequence of this freshly announced discovery of human embryonic stem cells, but all are many steps closer to reality than they were before, along with still other possibilities of preventing genetic disease and further serving human health.

What should be understood, too, is that, as astounding as this advance may be, it hardly stands alone as the solitary achievement over the past couple of decades in the genetic sciences. The cloning of Dolly the sheep stands out, for instance.

And research in the field is going full speed ahead, as witness the $20 billion Human Genome Project that is aiming to untangle genetic codes. Not a few writers concur that the likely accomplishments of DNA explorations over the next century could well make other scientific advances appear dwarfish by comparison - and could radically change the world.

It is conceivable, it has been noted, that the issue of food supply could be resolved once and for all through combining genes to make crops more nutritious, abundant and pest-resistant than today's farmers even dream of.

Ethical dilemmas

Ethical dilemmas will accompany these developments.

Some say, for example, that it's improper to do the sort of fetal cell research that led to Friday's announcements. Three years ago, Congress forbade the federal government from paying for such experiments.

Wise political adjustments to the new biological technology obviously will be crucial, which is another way of saying that the election news will not become irrelevant as the genetic news becomes more prominent.

But you can count on this: The news about genetics will more and more be news about vast new dimensions made possible in human existence.