Secret Harvard Meeting Moots Creation Of Synthetic Human Genome

In a closed-door meeting at Harvard University Medical School Tuesday, almost 150 scientists split hairs on the potential creation of a synthetic human genome. It would use chemicals to create the DNA in human chromosomes, a process that is promising and also raises worry as the genome can be harnessed to clone humans, but with no biological parents.

The team is hoping that the idea can enhance scientific advancements as a follow-up to the original Human Genome Project, which targeted reading the sequence of 3 billion letters in the DNA blueprint.

Synthetic genomics does not harness naturally occurring genes but relies on custom-designed base pair series. Hence, geneticists would not limit themselves only to two base pairs in nature but exploit many more possibilities.

The ethics and benefits of its possibility, of course, is a subject of debate.

"Would it be O.K., for example, to sequence and then synthesize Einstein's genome?" Drew Endy, a bioengineer at Stanford, and Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University, asked in a critical essay . "If so how many Einstein genomes should be made and installed in cells, and who would get to make them?"

Though he had been invited, Endy declined to attend the meeting.

"Given that human genome synthesis is a technology that can completely redefine the core of what now joins all of the humanity together as a species, we argue that discussions of making such capacities real, like today's Harvard conference, should not take place without open and advance consideration of whether it is morally right to proceed," he wrote.

Even other scientists such as Jeremy Misnhull, chief executive of DNA2.0, a DNA synthesis company, did not attend, as he had doubts over whether the creation would be worth it.

"Our ability to understand what to build is so far behind what we can build," he said. "I just don't think that being able to make more and more and more and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper is going to get us the understanding we need."