The Ethical Dilemma of Gene Sequencing

Scientists could soon eliminate disease-causing genes in humans before they’re even born. But what are the risks?


Today’s geneticists are able to edit the human genome in ways unforeseeable less than a decade ago. But with discoveries like CRISPR and Cas9 come new risks. The debate around embryonic intervention, particularly when it comes to stem cell research and elective abortion, may soon add another layer rife with controversy: “personalized eugenics” through gene sequencing.

On this week’s episode of Inquiring Minds, Kishore Hari spoke to cancer geneticist Siddartha Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine and oncologist at Columbia University Medical Center. Mukherjee, author of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, published his second book, The Gene, last month. You can listen to Kishore and Siddartha’s full interview on gene sequencing, therapy, and the human genome below:

Before specializing in cancer research, Mukherjee’s own interest in studying genetics was personal. His family had a history of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Mukherjee says that vulnerability became part of his consciousness from an early age.

“Long before I became a doctor or a scientist, the shadow of hereditary illness was part of my family,” he says. “At some point in time, we could not not talk about it, and we did.”

Certain preventative measures, like prenatal diagnoses, can be used to identify and prevent chronic disease and disorders. Though Mukherjee is excited about the realm of new possibilities made possible by recent advancements in technology and in techniques like Cas9, a recently discovered method of genomic editing, he says interventional methods like genetic therapy should be reserved for conditions that cause the most suffering—not something arbitrary like height, for example.

The topic of embryonic gene editing is sure to come into the political sphere in the next few years, but before it reaches state capitols and corporate boardrooms, Mukherjee says public engagement is the most important factor in determining how genetic science will and should be practiced in America. While embryonic gene editing is an ethically controversial matter in the United States, doctors in China last year attempted to edit the genes of nonviable fetuses, and this year successfully did so.

“You can have much tighter scientific control, which is more worrisome to me,” Mukherjee says. Calling genomic editing “one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas” in science, he likens this moment to the creation of the atomic bomb. Writing about eugenics in The Gene, Mukherjee suggests genomic editing could have unintended similarities to more sinister ideas, like Nazi-era eugenics.

“I do think the specter of personalized eugenics is part of our future, in which we sequence all the genes of our unborn children, really unborn eggs, and screen them, and potentially implant only the ones that are desirable,” Mukherjee says, likening the possibility of personalized eugenics to the creation of the atomic bomb and calling it a potentially “terrifying moral conundrum.”

“Of course, this might alleviate various forms of suffering,” he continues, “but we need to know what the unintended consequences of these kinds of technologies are, before we blithely embark on this kind of personalized eugenics.”

Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow, like us on Facebook, and check out show notes and other cool stuff on Tumblr.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate