It was an invitation only event on Tuesday for 150 people in a room without any windows at Harvard. The 150 were represented by scientists, government officials, entrepreneurs, people who call themselves “ethicists” and, of course, lawyers. The meeting, which was held in secret, was to discuss the future of humanity and our DNA.
The meeting was to discuss creating human DNA using certain chemicals so as to be able to replicate every chromosome in the human DNA structure. Outside discussion of what had taken place at this meeting was quickly extinguished as all were forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement which forbids them from talking about anything that was brought up in the meeting.
Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist and a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University was invited but declined to attend because, as he told New Scientist, he knew it would be less about discussion and more about coercion.
“It became apparent”, said Endy, “that the event was not about discussing whether to pursue the project but rather to conscript others. The creation of new human life is one of the last known human associated processes that has not yet been industrialized or fully commodified. It remains and act of faith, joy and hope.”
It seems that there is speculation and hope that the human genome can be built from nothing. The process to be able to do it has been speculated at taking a decade or so. One of the reasons for the meeting, it seemed, was to see if ten years was all that would be needed to perfect the process and the technology. To actually write, and not just read, all of the three billion units of the human genome.
Harvard biologist George Church
George Church, a Harvard biologist, was one of the organizers of the meeting and told The Washington Post that there was nothing secret about it. Church wants to modify pig genes to be used in human transplants and thinks it a great idea to reintroduce the woolly mammoth to Earth. He stated that the speculation and resultant ideas were soon to find publication and he didn’t want any leaks prior to publication.
Church said that they weren’t meeting to consider the creation of humans by humans or creating what someone might dub “the perfect human”. He told The Washington Post the discussions “would be to synthesize a complete human genome in a cell line within a period of ten years.”
First there has been genetically modified food. Some have wondered about genetically modified humans to create super soldiers or to create a human that looks exactly like another human. The project is currently in search of funding.
PHOTO CREDITS: Reuters / Pixabay