James Shreeve's book The Genome War unveils the history of one of the most ambitious projects in molecular biology: decoding the human genome. Referred to by many people in the book as "the code of life," the concept indeed sounds breathtaking. Many people heard of The Manhattan Project (even one of the decoding machine projects in the book bears the same name), but, unfortunately, quite a few people have heard about the Human Genome Project. Yet, in my opinion, the impact of having an “address book” every single human gene is just as profound.
The book raises many interesting topics behind the narrative of the ambitious project. It reveals a very important side of the matter which a lot of people don’t see behind the headlines. The world of science today is a very competitive, political and sometimes dirty environment. The advance is driven by the human ego, money, and vanity. Many people imagine the world of science as a romantic world of masterminds committed to solving the problems of humanity and the universe. For better or worse—Mr. Shreeve proves that it’s not true.
The economic and political freedom of the United States made it a thriving heaven for scientists. In the competitive capitalistic environment, however, it is often really heard to pursue pure scientific curiosity, it must be a product that can be sold. In some extraordinary cases, like with the Human Genome Project, the government steps in and offers substantial funding. A group of world-renowned scientists gets together and decides on the project plan and starts working on it. What could possibly go wrong? It turns out, a lot of things.
Mr. Shreeve emphasizes the importance of the human ego in science, and that’s exactly why Craig Venter decided to disrupt the delicate balance of the situation and take over the ambitious project. Obviously, everyone would like to just casually mention, “Yeah, I decoded the human genome.” Is he the villain or the hero? It’s up to the reader to decide. In my personal opinion, Celera’s attempt to “patent” human genes shows the crooked intentions of Venter and his company.
Is there a solution to this? Well, the modern economy of the United States doesn’t allow any room for any other approach. The scientific advancement would greatly benefit from additional government funding. If even a quarter of the money spent on the military could be put into the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health, the scientific community could get the support and funding it needs. If the most non-scientific aspect of the issue is taken care of, scientists could focus on pursuing real knowledge that could help people, and not waste time on politics, business, diplomacy and backroom plots. If politicians (unfortunately) don’t have to be scientists, why do scientists have to be politicians?
Sequencing the human genome really has started a revolution in health and medicine similarly to how splitting the atom did in energy and war. I found your analysis of the book itself quite interesting, especially on how people view science. Your argument on how people tend to romanticize research reminded me of the webcomic linked below. While you argue that trying to patent the genome demonstrated Venter’s greed, that Celera released their sequencing results regularly demonstrated a certain level of transparency beyond your view. In fact, their business model was intended as providing an annotated version with the raw data available to all.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.geomicrobes.com/some-people-think-scientist-exclaim-eureka-2/
Fascinating thoughts and very well written Nick! Maybe you would think "the modern economy of the United States doesn’t allow any room for any other approach" because no one is working on changing it. Any ideas? (I'm honestly curious)
ReplyDeleteI find the question you posed at the end of your post very intriguing. It rings true in light of the "race" between Venter and HGP. Much of the way they contested ownership of the genome was purely political and for the benefit of the public only. For much of the book, the HGP had the support of the public even though Venter and his team were much closer to actually sequencing the genome. This really shows that scientists have to be savvy in many areas in order to be successful. Being purely a scientist is no longer enough.
ReplyDelete