91色情片

This is a classic article from New Scientist鈥檚 archive, republished as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations

AN INTERNATIONAL group of some 140 biologists met last week at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, to discuss their new-found ability to play God with living organisms, and to consider a catechism. They also established a precedent from which science may never look back 鈥� or, according to another view, recover. For the first time, scientists have taken a hard look at a new fertile field of investigation, paused before entering, and laid down guidelines by which they consider they and their colleagues should proceed. They did it self-consciously and a little clumsily, and they did it not over questions of broad social and political concern but over the ethically straightforward issue of potential risks to public health. But they did it.

The Asilomar conference owed its existence to a statement last July by a National Academy of Sciences committee, chaired by Paul Berg of Stanford University, highlighting potential hazards accompanying the emergence of a new genetic skill: the ability to insert into the genes of one organism those of another, distantly related organism. Using this technology, for instance, human genes could be introduced into bacteria. The Berg committee was concerned that organisms with dangerous new properties might be created by this sort of genetic manipulation. It called for voluntary deferral of experiments in two broad categories, and for very careful consideration before a third, more dangerous, class of genetic transfers was considered.

The conference agreed on cautious development, and in particular on urgent research into means of 鈥渄isabling鈥� laboratory strains of bacteria so that they cannot survive in the human gut. A National Institutes of 91色情片 committee has been set up to establish a formal set of guidelines for recombinant DNA research. In Britain, the research councils now have the Asilomar proceedings as well as the, largely consonant, Ashby report. There will also now be a crash programme to perfect disabled bacteria and genetic vectors as soon as possible.

There were a number of things wrong with Asilomar. Too much time was spent quibbling about the optimum temperature for an enzymatic reaction instead of debating the central issue. But thanks largely to Paul Berg, who demonstrated a remarkable ability to walk a tightrope between democracy and autocracy in running the meeting 鈥� and thanks of course to the idea of disabled microbes 鈥� it was a notable, perhaps historic, achievement. Scientists have demonstrated that they can, when it is important, bury their competitive instincts and paranoia about the freedom to experiment where they may, and arrive at a measure of self-regulation. It is an odd comment upon science that this should come as something of a surprise.

This article was originally published in New Scientist on 6 March 1975

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