New Frontiers in Genetic Engineering

I was browsing some older posts from Matt’s blog, and I came across this.

In fact this is something I’ve known for a while, and just sent Matt an email about, but I’ve never posted here on the subject.

It’s just a fact, the science of genetic engineering (GE) is quickly moving out of the laboratory and into the home.  Not just in our ability to buy products that are a result of GE, but also in our ability to make GE organisms ourselves.

Already, if you have a well equiped home, it’s possible to do an awful lot.  The cost of this equipment is within the budgets of many people, it’s only getting cheaper and it’s accuracy increasing.

The amount of publically available data that can assist GE is also increasing at a dramatic rate; including things like decoded genomes and cataloges of marker genes (a fancy term that just means genes with a known trait).  All of this applies to plants, microorganisms, animals and even humans.

So while the debate now often centers on the latest Roundup ready gene Monsanto inserted into our soybeans, tomorrow it could be the latest accident caused by a teenager or the mess intentionally caused by someone knowledgeable.

I often compare GE to abortions.  I don’t really think it makes sense for anyone to be for or against abortions.  An abortion is just a medical procedure.  You can argue if it’s immoral, talk about it in terms of legal or illegal, safe or unsafe, early or late, but you can never deny the existance of the procedure itself.

This is really where we are now with GE.  The genie is out of the bottle.  Now it’s time to start learning as much as possible as quickly as possible about the science, and to focus honestly and diligently on what the real risks are.

In the meantime, this crap doesn’t belong in our food or the environment, until we’ve had a chance to honestly research and learn more about it!

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