A team of researchers is currently working on a project as ambitious as it is controversial: synthesizing human DNA starting from zero. An initiative that could lead to a real medical revolution … and raise a mountain of uncomfortable ethical questions.
The sequencing of the human genome in 2003 marked a major turning point, fundamental in the history of modern sciences. Through this project, the teams of Human Genome Project have profoundly changed medicine forever – but also the way in which we now understand the history and evolution of humanity.
But in recent years, an even more ambitious, and potentially even more revolutionary project, has been built behind the scenes: the Synthetic Human Genome Project. Led by several eminent biologists like George Church, one of the great pioneers of genomics, his objective is to pass this discipline in a whole new dimension in synthesizing an artificial human genome. These researchers no longer just want to read what constitutes, in substance, the cooking recipe of our species; They want in write a whole new version.
According to the actors of the project, it is a great opportunity to eradicate a lot of illnesses that are incurable, and more broadly, of revolutionizing genetics, biology, medicine and biotechnologies.
« If we consider the human genome, it is much more than a simple set of genes on a chain ”, explains the biologist Julian Sale in an interview with Guardian. “There is an incredible quantity of this genome, sometimes called“ dark matter ”, whose function we ignore. The idea is that if we manage to build successfully, we can fully understand them. »
A highly controversial field of research
This project now seems about to move up a gear thanks to a Don of 10 million pounds from the Wellcoma Trusta medical charitable fund which had notably contributed to Human Genome Project. This envelope, intended to support work on human genomic synthesis, will allow certain researchers involved to develop the tools and techniques necessary for genomic synthesis.
But not everyone considers it as good news; With this donation, the institution also opened the Pandora’s box. Indeed, this work has long been more or less taboo, because it is an extremely delicate and controversial research field.
History has already proven us repeatedly that any technology, however great it may be, can also be used badly. And even if the SHGP teams are strictly limited to laboratory work, Without any intention to create synthetic humans from nothingthere is a significant risk that a tool as powerful and revolutionary falls into the hands of unscrupulous scientists. The latter could then use it to fuel other projects with questionable legitimacy to say the least.
Real risks
The most obvious fear concerns theeugenics – A set of practices aimed at selecting the genetic heritage of our species in order to “improve it”, or to eliminate the elements deemed unwanted according to often ideological criteria. With such tools, some people could, for example, start playing God by creating tailor-made babies.
But this is only the emerged part of the iceberg. If humanity was capable of manipulating the constituent elements of life, it could also build biological weapons with the potential for terrifying destruction, create new organisms from scratch, and so on. Practices which, in the long term, could completely alter the trajectory of our specieswith a bunch of biological and social consequences as unpredictable as it is problematic.
Another potential friction point concerns the use and marketing of this technology by private companies, which could lead to an ethical disaster worthy of the greatest works of dystopian fiction.
« If we manage to create synthetic organs, even synthetic people, to whom do they belong? And to whom do the data from these creations belong to? “Worries Bill Earnshaw, an eminent Scottish geneticist interviewed by the BBC.
Anticipate to better supervise
The Wellcoma Trust is obviously well aware of these risks. If he has still chosen to finance the project knowingly, it is above all to ensure that this research will be conducted responsible.
« This technology will necessarily be developed one day “Explains Dr. Tom Collins, research director at Wellcoma, in an interview with the BBC. “” By implementing it now, we at least try to do it in the most responsible way possible and to approach the ethical and moral questions as upstream as possible. »
To achieve this, the institution does not intend to be limited to laboratory work; She will also launch a social science program To study the overall impact of this project from all angles. “” We want to collect the opinion of experts, specialists in social sciences and especially the public on their relationship with this technology, on the advantages it can bring them and, above all, on their questions and concerns Adds Joy Zhang, sociologist at the University of Kent, who will direct this branch of the program.
As you can see, this new financing may have just started a machine which, in the long term, could fundamentally transform humanity-for the better as for the worst. It will therefore be necessary to actively monitor the scientific progress which will emerge from the Synthetic Human Genome Project, but also and above all the social and political debates which will undoubtedly emerge in parallel.
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