21st Century Research Genetics - John Medina
Watson and Crick asked science to tell them the structure of
DNA; contemporary geneticists ask science to discern how life begins, from the
fusion of parental genetic material to selective activation of genes in a
developing embryo. This “idea of turning genes on and off and seeing in some
cases profound effects of activation on cellular careers,” says Dr. John Medina
in his presentation ‘Womb with a View: The Research Genetics of the 21st
Century,’ “is providing great insight into our understanding of this marvelous
embryonic construction project. And the more we understand what is occurring,
we will be knocking on the door of deeper and more profound questions about the
substance of life. Even issues like identity begin to change.”
“[U]nbelieveable vistas are coming,” Medina says. “It is an
amazing thing, and it is not terrifying - it is awe-inspiring.” There are,
however, “many things that bring concern to me a scientist,” he says. “It can
start innocently enough - there’s nothing wrong with A’s and G’s and T’s and C’s,
nor is there anything wrong with trying to keep a little girl who has cystic
fibrosis alive from choking in her own fluid. The problem is simply that our
curiosity comes with some unintended consequences having to do with both the
nature of the inquiry as well as the nature of the inquirer. In the end, we
have asked science to answer a question for us” - what are the beginnings of
life, how does this cell work, and how do you make certain things occur? And
the answer we have received, Medina says, “has not only changed the nature of
the interrogation, it has had a powerful transforming effect on the people
asking the question.”
“From genetic
testing to stretching our definitions, it is the whole purpose of this
conference to bring dialogue to these issues,” Medina says. “And for us who
both perceive and profess moral absolutes, to see where the conflict lies, it
is the twenty-first century’s most interesting contribution to the age-old
quandary of pain and suffering.”
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| Contributed by: Heather Evans
|
