Read How Scientists are Trying to Create a Parentless Human

This idea seems inspired by Frankenstein
Photo Credit:  pave65

Of course,  this is such a bad and stupid idea but what do i know? I am not a scientific genius...

Did you hear about the secret meeting earlier this month at Harvard Medical School? The one where scientists schemed to create a parentless human being from scratch? Maybe you read one of the skeptical newsarticles, or the stories illustrated with images from the dystopian sci-fi classic “Blade Runner” or of a robot Frankenstein. One blogger compared the meeting to a gathering of “Bond villains.”

The press coverage was suspicious and critical. Why would a bunch of scientists need to exclude the media and the public from a meeting about something as ethically fraught as synthesizing a human genome?

Three weeks later, the exact details of what happened are still being contested. I’m a researcher in synthetic biology, and I learned of the project from reading the newspaper. I reached out to the meeting’s organizers, who – for reasons I’ll explain – declined to comment for this article. But in conversations with meeting invitees, as well as some critics, I’ve found that much of the press coverage was misleading, and says more about the relationship between journalists and scientists than the meeting itself.

What really happened behind closed doors when over 130 scientists, industry leaders and ethicists convened to talk about synthesizing a human genome? How did these sessions end up so widely misunderstood by the media and the public?

Open doors versus science publishing protocols

The May 10 meeting was titled “HGP-Write: Testing Large Synthetic Genomes in Cells.” HGP refers to the Human Genome Project, the world’s largest collaborative biological effort that resulted in the sequencing of the full human genome in 2003.

Those invited say the organizers hoped to inspire scientists and the public with a new grand challenge project: to advance from reading genomes towriting them, by manufacturing them from individual DNA building blocks. In an invitation dated March 30, the hosts proposed a bold collaborative effort to “synthesize a complete human genome within a cell line.” Panels tackled whether such an effort is worthwhile, as well as the ethical, technological and economic challenges.

The conversation was not intended to be restricted. The meeting organizers – Harvard geneticist George Church; New York University systems geneticist Jef Boeke; Andrew Hessel, of the Bio/Nano research group atAutodesk, Inc.; and Nancy J. Kelley, a lawyer specializing in biotechnology consulting – had plans to engage the broader scientific community, as well as industry, policy makers and the public. They made a video recording of the entire meeting, originally intended to be live-streamed over the Internet. They planned to apply for federal funding, which would invite regulatory oversight. And they submitted a white paper to a major peer-reviewed journal explaining the scientific, technological and ethical aspects of the project.

But the publication of the paper was delayed – the authors haven’t disclosed why, although editors commonly ask for revisions as part of the peer review process. (As of this writing, it has not yet come out.) The organizers are prohibited from discussing the paper in public until it is published – a common journal policy known as an embargo. In deference to the embargo, they declined to comment in detail for this article.

News of the delay came just days before the meeting, and, with dozens of attendees en route, the hosts made a fateful decision. They chose to proceed, but to close the doors to most journalists and ask attendees to delay public discussion until the embargo lifts. (At least one journalist was there – Simone Ross, co-founder of Techonomy Media, confirmed her attendance to me.) “I’m not sure that was the best idea,” Dr. Church told STAT News of the decision to proceed out of the public eye.

The secrecy bred suspicion. “Would it be OK to sequence and then synthesize Einstein’s genome?” asked Stanford bioengineer Drew Endy and Northwestern bioethicist Laurie Zoloth in a joint essay. In theory, an artificial human genome could be used to generate a living human without biological parents. “This idea is an enormous step for the human species, and it shouldn’t be discussed only behind closed doors,” STAT News quoted Dr. Zoloth.

Beyond qualms about the science itself, some observers were concerned that the organizers’ decisions – which included seeking industry partners and private funding – were quiet moves towards “privatiz[ing] the current conversation about heritable genetic modification.”

Read more at Disinfo