Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life

Every orchid or rose . . . is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. . . . Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people. There will be do-it-yourself kits for gardeners who will use genetic engineering to breed new varieties of roses and orchids. Also kits for lovers of pigeons and parrots and lizards and snakes to breed new varieties of pets. Breeders of dogs and cats will have their kits too. Domesticated biotechnology, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures. — Freeman Dyson, “Our Biotech Future,” The New York Review of Books, July 19, 2007 --- A few years ago, The Economist ran a cover story on some slightly obtuse advances in the scientific understanding of RNA. I knew from high school biology that RNA carried the genetic code spelled out by DNA into the part of the cell where those instructions are translated into proteins—the basic stuff of our physical selves. According to the article, these latest insights into RNA comprised “biology’s Big Bang.” Biology would be to this century, according to the story, what nuclear physics was to the last. Headlines sell magazines, and the article failed to convince me that these advances in the science of RNA were biology’s equivalent to splitting the atom. Yet the more I learned, the more I began to see sense in the piece’s broader claim that biology—specifically, molecular biology— would be the marquee science of our time. As I paid more attention to the field, I saw the potential for transformation everywhere. Stem cells that could mimic any tissue. Scanners that could decode all three billion letters in a person’s DNA alphabet in weeks. Deep insight into the genetic roots of disease. Genes hacked together to create new varieties of life not conceived by nature. Even more than what researchers can do and do know, I marvel at how much is left to learn. Each advance in the understanding of the complexity of cells, the fundamental unit of life, brings a glimpse of an even greater complexity that scientists could not know existed until they reached the precipice of their previous knowledge. The intricate pathways from genetic code to bodily expression. The baroque folding patterns of proteins. The subtle mechanisms that tell a gene when to speak and when to remain silent. The maddening elusiveness of the cancer cell—the evolutionary equivalent of a suicide machine. Biologists have so many doors left to unlock. Perhaps the twentieth century’s great push outward and upward into the sky and beyond will be matched this century by a great turn inward, into the body and its intricate secrets. We might not discover the biological equivalent of the Big Bang, but perhaps some intrepid explorer will take the biological equivalent of the first trip to the moon. The analogy isn’t perfect: The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 may well have been biology’s one giant leap for mankind. Or perhaps that distinction could even go to the first time scientists spliced together genes from two different organisms, just four years after Neil Armstrong took his one small step. Perhaps gene splicing will be looked back on as the equivalent of the invention of the internal combustion engine and the Human Genome Project the Wright brothers’ first flight. If molecular biology advances as far in the twenty-first century as twentieth-century aerospace, between Kitty Hawk and the International Space Station, life will look much different one hundred years from now. /.../ No credible scientist would say that bioengineers are close to infusing human subjects with horse genes to run faster or fish genes for breathing under water. Yet these comic book fantasies contain a germ of credibility. If not plausible, the concept of genetically altered humans is comprehensible. The ability to tinker with our genetic essence feels not so much like a problem of basic science but one of engineering. Scientists can create a rough sketch of how to get there; they just need to discover the remaining scientific details in order to fill in the outline. Though he won’t be aware of it for a while, the epic quest now under way to trace the complete blueprint of our genetic selves will give shape to my son’s life, and his entire generation, as they grow into adulthood. These children are the first to be born with the genetic map already drawn. Every advance made toward understanding what the signposts on that map mean and how they function will represent another step toward a greater understanding of a certain version of himself. Ironically, each discovery could also mean another step taken toward the means to alter that self in ways that stir both hope and horror. I want to understand what that future will look like for my son. This book is a search for that long view and the people who might point the way. ---- The Commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. The Commission further believes that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon. The Commission believes that the U.S. government needs to move more aggressively to limit the proliferation of biological weapons and reduce the prospect of a bioterror attack. — World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, December 2008