Interventions in the human genome.
dictators, the recent eugenic excesses of the twentieth century and the brave new world held out by the imminent completion of the Human Genome Project provide rich and fertile ground for speculation, debate and sometimes concern. On the other hand, genetics offers the capacity to identify disorders and hopefully in the future to cure them. As Wilkie says, 'the new genetical anatomy will transform medicine and mitigate suffering in the twenty-first century." Watson and Crick's discovery in 1953 of the structure of DNA - the key discovery on which the Human Genome Project rests - was probably one of the most remarkable scientific achievements of this century, and has led to the most ambitious scientific project since the space race. Its significance lies in the growing capacity to identify the molecular structures which make us who we are, at least physically. As Bodmer and McKie have said: 'DNA is the true chemical of life, for it is the essential component from which our genes are made. In it is encoded the genetic language that controls our destinies. And an astonishingly powerful lexicon it is. Just six million millionths of a gram of DNA carries as much information as ten volumes of the Complete Oxford English Dictionary.'2 Clearly the potential of being able to unravel and translate this lexicon in both depth and detail is of enormous fascination to science. Even if not all of the information ultimately discovered is of immediate interest or applicability (socalled 'junk DNA'3), much of what is discovered will be of theoretical and/or practical value. The capacity to identify rogue genes which cause disease or disability may lead to medical advances as yet unimagined. And the toll of genetic disorder should not be underestimated. Wexler suggests that '[i]t is now estimated that gene defects underlie 3,000 to 4,000 different diseases, and this is before one considers polygenic etiologies in which there is interaction between genes and environment.'4