The Human Condition

A recent article published in Lancet medical journal relates how a California college professor has sequenced his own genome and discovered he has a high risk of suddenly dropping dead from a heart attack, as well as being at a high risk for prostate cancer. The technology cost approximately $50,000, but the latest equipment can do it for $5000 (from such companies like Illumina and Life Technologies Corp). The team leader who analyzed the professor's DNA says "The $1000 genome is coming fast."

Using science to make accurate predictions about how one will die, or even when, is not new. A test for Huntington's chorea (a central nervous system disease resulting in uncontrolled movements, loss of mental abilities, and changes in personality or behavior, eventually leading to immobility and complications such as congestive heart failure and pneumonia -there is no cure), has been available for pre-symptomatic carriers for some time. It's interesting to note, however, that only 5% of potential carriers ever take advantage of the test. Prenatal testing is also available, raising ethical issues surrounding aborting fetuses known to be carriers.

My wife and I recently watched the movie "Gattaca", a sci-fi set in the not too distant future. In it, citizens have been genetically modified from conception to avoid such health problems as heart disease, cognitive disabilities, and even poor eyesight. Those whose parents have opted for a natural birth are often shunned, given jobs like scrubbing the toilets of the more genetically "perfect". The movie follows the efforts of a character played by Ethan Hawke, a man born naturally, to participate in a space mission to Titan. Having been turned away from entry into the prestigious space training center because he is not genetically "up to the task," Hawke embarks on a long journey of training and deception in order to achieve his goal. I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it...

As much as this movie is about class society, the haves and the have nots, the elite and the workers (including the bodily discipline that so marks the working class, who often have only their own bodies), this movie is also about the coming (and already upon us) genetic revolution. What was once science fiction has now become non-fiction. It raises several questions:

If it is possible to detect and screen out genetic conditions leading to health issues, why not? If there is a way to manipulate genes to make us smarter or healthier shouldn't we jump at the chance? Here we might also enter into the debate about the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport and academia. If one can pop a pill to aid memory or energy without adverse side-effects, shouldn't one do it? I admit to being a regular user of the performance enhancing drug caffeine, a drug with relatively few side effects! But there are many more powerful and effective drugs now available.. So if one is able to circumvent even this (or supplement it) through genetic manipulation, why not?

This also raises the more fundamental question of what it means to be human. Do these advances in bio-genetics not challenge us for a redefinition? It will continue to do so as scientists are even now capable of creating life at a basic level (not reconstituting life from spare parts, but actually constructing it from a molecular level). The resistance given to such projects is telling. What is it exactly that is being resisted?