Brave New Monkey by Creating the First Genetically Altered Primate, Scientists Take One Step Closer to Allomng Parents to Custom-Order Their Child's Genetic Traits
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Brave New Monkey By creating the first genetically altered primate, scientists take one step closer to allomng parents to custom-order their child's genetic traits By SHARON BEGLEY Until A.NDi, genetic engi E'S A FRISKY LITTLE FEL neering had meant slipping a low, S\\inging from a ring bit ofhealthy DNA into cells of ".~_ in his doll-size white T shirt a patientwho is sufferingfrom a ~ \\ith the black belt, clam genetic disease such as cystic fi- ~.~~_ bering over and through an brosis. A:.~Di breaks that mold, __=~ elaborate cat-scratching post, bringing us a step closer to tinker- ~~~ sucking his thumb and duck ing "ith an indi\idual's genetic en- ~Z'~ ing for cover when playmates Sandy and dowment before birth, and "ith the ge- -: Sammy ambush him. To all appearances, netic legacy of generations unborn. The A....l"''Di (we'll explain soon) is an ordinary Oregon scientists don't know whether rhesus monkey. But appearances deceive. ANDi's sperm contains the green gene, Born by cesarean section last October, and they won't know for four years, ..L........Di is the first genetically altered primate PLAY TIM E: ASDi looks and acts nonnal, when the little guy reaches sexual ma ever created. If he were human, he'd be romping with other test-tube toddlers turity. But if A..'\'Di's sperm does called a designer baby. And that makes him carry the green gene, he "ill pass the embodiment of the greatest hopes as set of twins miscarried. One embryo failed it on to all his offspring. And well as the worst nightmares here at the to implant. Three monkeys were born. then the first genetically dawn of the age of genetics: that desirable Sandy and Sammy show no sign of the altered primate will genes "ill be inserted into human eggs, green gene. But ..L......TIi does. Hence his claim another ti producing "genetically enhanced" children. name: short for "inserted D~A," backward. tle: father to a Although that was not the purpose of the The next step is to give rhesus monkeys geneticallyal research that produced A:.'\i'Di, the little guy human genes that play a role in Alzhei teredrace. ",ith the soulful eyes is a landmark proof of mer's disease, cancer, hereditary blind concept. "At some point in the future," ad ness, schizophrenia, Parkinson's or other mits Anthony Chan ofthe Oregon Regional scourges. A primate version of such a dis Primate Research Center, who performed ease, scientists believe, should lead more the manipulations that created A._1\"'Di, "it is quickly to vaccines or treatments than the conceivable that others may attempt this mouse models that currently exist. In addi technique to enhance humans." tion, genetically altered monkeys can:ing a The researchers say they had no such gene "for" Alzheimer's or prostate cancer, goal in creating A........TIi. Instead, they hope say, might show whether the suspect gene to create primate models of human dis always causes the disease, or whether emi eases, and they had to start simply. They ronmental factors like diet or acti\ity can first retrieved a well-studied. gene, called cheat genetic destiny. the green fluorescent protein gene, from The researchers chose the green gene be jellyfish. Ttue to its name, the gene makes a cause its presence is so easy to detect, not be protein that, in blue light, glows green. cause they wanted glow-in-the-dark mon They then put copies ofthe gene into virus keys. In fact, AJ.......TIi looks nothing like a hairy es, since (as anyone with the flu knows) green Lava lamp; the gene, although present ,iruses are adept at penetrating cells. Each in every tissue the Oregon scientists tested, \irus dutifully carried. the green gene into seems to be dormant. That's acrually a red 224 rhesus-monkey eggs, where it slipped flag. Since A.:.......TIi shows no sign of the trait into the monkey genes like a foreign spy that was supposedly engineered into him, hiding in a crowd. The eggs were then fer \iruses-which insert the foreign gene ran tilized through microinjection ofsperm. Af domly-may not be the way to produce genet ter 126 ofthe fertilized eggs grew and di\id ically altered animals. For genetic enhance ed beyond the four-cell stage, Chan selected ment, and perhaps even for making a monkey what looked like the 40 best embryos and model ofa human disease. you have to get the transferred them into 20 surrogate-mother gene to the spot in the chromosomes where it monkeys. Five pregnancies resulted. One will be properlycontrolled. ~EWSWEEK 50 JANUARY 22, 2001 COURT!:SY 0AfG0N I"tEAl~ SCJelCl::S l!NlvtRS,"" :LE~Tl OFlE.GON "'EA<. TH SCIE-!'otCES U"ftVERSiTY-SC,ENCE ~AGt.l1"'f Although Oregon's Gerald Schatten is em phatic that ~we don't support the extrapola tion of this work to people for genetic en RHESUS PIECE: hancement,~some regard that stepas an act of Out o{224 tri'?s, medical humanitarianism. Engineeringeggs A..SDi was the so thata healthy gene replaces a disease-caus only success ing one should help both the child-to-be and his or her descendants, lifting a family curse of cancer, atherosclerosis, schizophrenia or anotherdisease \\;th a stronggenetic compo nent. ~lfyou could pre\"entfuture generations from ha\;ng grave genetic diseases, it would make the life ofour species a little less terri ble.~ says bioethicist Arthur Schafer of the Uni\"ersity ofManitoba. E\"en genetic enhancement for reasons that fall short of life and death has ad\"o cates. If parents want a tall, thin, hazel eved, athletic, brain\" kid, whose business is it ofanyone else's? 'foday's well-offparents hire tutors. music teachers, pri\"ate sportS coaches and SAT ad\;sers for their chil dren, if they can afford to. "Ko one calls for banning SAT tutors in the in terest of egalitarianism. ~But genes are dif .. ,. '" Present at the Creation SPE~ Until now, genetic engineering has meant getting . '. ..' . Sperm is micro~ed healthy genes into a few ofa patient's cells. ButANDi ·~'.iij3if';:;* ~~~::rcliZ~~d was created in a way that should get a f~~ gene t NTO Tft E ,-,;' i into all his cells-and his descendant8~o, The virus sheds its coat, ~e ft'SUlting e~bryo, , and the foreign gene IS transplantedwto a \ ,.. " insinuates itself, at ran- surrogate mother. 'oi: ~~:SPEClll DELIVERY ~"i''''', A~s~,.~;ng.aforeign dom. into the egg's D!\A. " ,.,,,,, ....',.'''.'-r,,', gene IS fiJeeted fito "-:", """ '.". " A"""/~' ..monkey egg. Thn;;us . ",'/ -. beads toward the egg s D~A. ~Y'" ""-=< .0' Egg -.--/" ' ~ Microlrijection r'.;:A Sperm ~ i ~ ~-r,7,',.•~iJ,'« :',': r f.i' ...~ '~~j 1 . '-.,/ C~l.c ... ·~~. : .. ='S~:;P ... &.,,1.':; :_-.;:;::;.'::.:. 't, Virus sheds coat, releasing gene \1; \; SCI El'iCF. & TECHNOLOGY ferent." argues bioethicist \[argaret Somenille of \lcGill L"niversity in Canada. The human genome-the collection of some 70.000 genes carried by every hu man-is ~the patrimony of theentire species. held in truSt for us byour ancestors and in truSt by us lor our descendants. It has taken millions of years to evoh"e: should we really be changing it in a gen lTation or two?" :\nd Schaler warns of new social di\isions: inaddition to hayes and ha\'e-nots, we \\ill have the gene-rich and the gene-poor. .\t infertility clinics. couples are not clamoring to choose their would-be child's traits the way they choose options on a car. :\t least not yet. ~Some request a particular gender. but no one has "'sked for a specific gene." says Dr. Paul Gindotf of the George Washington l:niYersity in \itro lertilization clinic in Washing ton, D.C. ~The traits that couples might care about-eye color. hair color. height, intelligence and per sonality-don't come from a single gene anyway. but from a complex combination. We are orders of mag nitude away from being able to offer traits to order." The closest couples come to their own pri\'ate eugenics is embryo selection, says Dr. \lartin Keltz of ' St. Luke's-Roose\'e!t Hospital Center in \Ianhanan. In this process, clinics screen I the embryos thay create to determine \\ hether any carries a deleterious gene that runs in either partner's family. If it does, that embryo is discarded; only healthy-seeming ones go into the woman's uterus. But if taday's patients aren't asking for custom-made babies, tomorrow's might. \\nen a \Iarch of Dimes pollasked people if they would ~impro\'e"their child's appearance or in telligence through genetic tinkering, 42 percent answered yes. \\nether society allows that \\ill likel\' depend on what ~ight be called the ~ick'" faetor-a sense of repugnance at treating children as a product. at robbing life of its sacredness. Society emitted a collecti\'e ~ick" at the first test-tube baby, the first surrogate mother, the first baby"bom to its biological grandmother. But "ick" tends to dissipate; more than 300,000 test-tube babies ha\'e been born. Science now has the power not merely to create, but to manipulate creation ~as ne\'er before. In a 1944 essav, noyelist' C. S. Lewis warned that "the final stage is come when :\1an by eugenics, by prenatal conditioning .. , has obtained fuji control over himself." That day is no\\' a little closer. • 52 :-; E w S \\' E E K } .\:IIl:.\ R Y 2 2. 2 00 [ • detente broke down. Some of its greatest minds dismissed God as an unnecessary hypothesis, one they didn't need to ex plain how galaxies came to shine or how life grew so complex.