SCIENCE 158:313

Dangers of Reprogramming Cells .

In an editorial, “Will society be
prepared?” (11 Aug., p. 633), Niren-
berg wrote about the prospects of
molecular genetics:

Cells will be programmed with syn-
thetic messages within 25 years ... and
when man becomes capable of program-
ming his own cells, he must refrain from
doing so until he has sufficient wisdom
to use this knowledge for the benefit of
mankind.

No subject of policy is more impor-
tant than this, and it deserves the most
critical debate. There is some danger
that, whether so intended or not, Niren-
berg’s language could generate public
misunderstandings that might undercut
the very research needed to reach suf-
ficient wisdom. His underlying con-
cern, which I share, is that biological
control might be used by a malevolent
government to the peril of individual
freedom. As Hitler’s racial policy illus-
trated only too well, the State’s access
to forcible compulsion already gives it
the power of genocide.

Presumably we have to be even more
concerned about subtler mistakes. A
well-intentioned government might im-
pose rash commitments for the sake
of short-term advantages. Plainly we
must be very sensitive about innova-
tions that, once introduced, constitute
irreversible evolutionary deviations.

However, we should emphasize the
distinction between eugenics, that is,
programmed evolution, and euphenics,
that is, the reprogramming of somatic
cells and the modification of develop-
ment. “Message” does carry a strong
connotation of RNA messengers with
somatic effects. To interdict such per-
sonal uses of messages would be hard
to justify without a prohibition on all
new medicine, especially such interven-
tions as the use of hormones. If only
germinal messages are meant, we have
other prospects to worry about too. The
manipulation of germ cells for genetic

Letters

surgery would almost certainly be pre-
ceded by techniques for clonal propaga-
tion and for chromosome manipulations
in human beings, which would already
have the most cogent evolutionary im-
plications.

Human culture, as. the late H. J.
Muller has pointed out, is already a
Major commitment of individual de-
velopment to formative influences de-
cided by the community. Our educa-
tional systems are certainly a form of
psychological engineering scarcely dif-
ferent in fundamental principle from
the biological interventions that our
knowledge of nucleic acids is likely to
bring about.

Our main concern must be to maxi-
mize the role of individual decision.
This could be defeated by overenthusi-
astic policing of personal initiative and
experimentation as well as by prema-
ture positive measures imposed by the
State. :

In point of fact, we already practice
biological engineering on a rather large
scale by use of live viruses in mass
immunization campaigns. While these
are of indubitable value for prevent-
ing serious diseases, their global im-
pact on the development of human
beings of a wide range of genotypes
is hard to assess at our present stage

. of wisdom. Crude virus preparations,

such as some in common use at the
present time, are also vulnerable to
frightful mishaps of contamination and
misidentification. —

Live viruses are themselves genetic
messages used for the purpose of pro-
gramming human cells for the synthesis
of immunogenic virus antigens. Niren-
berg’s cautions are just as relevant to
considerations of contemporary policy
as they are for the ever-widening ap-
plications of molecular biology in the
near future. :
/ JosHua LEDERBERG
Department of Genetics,

Stanford University School of Medicine,
Palo Alto, California 94304