As a DNA-based creature myself, I’m always fascinated by DNA’s remarkable capabilities. Not just all the ways that life has found to use it, but our ability to find new ways to take advantage of them. I’ve written about DNA as a storage medium, as a neural network, as a computer, in a robot, even mirror DNA. So when I read about the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project, last week, I was thrilled.
Welcome to the Synthetic Human Genome Project, Credit: SynHG
The project
was announced,
and is being funded, by the Wellcome Trust, to the tune of £10 million pounds
over five years. Its goal is “to develop the foundational tools, technology and
methods to enable researchers to one day synthesise genomes.”
The project’s website elaborates:
Through programmable synthesis of genetic material we will unlock a deeper understanding of life, leading to profound impacts on biotechnology, potentially accelerating the development of safe, targeted, cell-based therapies, and opening entire new fields of research in human health. Achieving reliable genome design and synthesis – i.e. engineering cells to have specific functions – will be a major milestone in modern biology.
The goal of
the current project isn’t to build a full synthetic genome, which they believe
may take decades, but “to provide proof of concept for large genome synthesis
by creating a fully synthetic human chromosome.”
That’s a
bigger deal than you might realize.
“Our DNA
determines who we are and how our bodies work,” says Michael Dunn, Director of
Discovery Research at Wellcome. “With recent technological advances, the SynHG
project is at the forefront of one of the most exciting areas of scientific
research.”
The
project is led by Professor
Jason Chin from the Generative Biology Institute at Ellison Institute of
Technology and the University of Oxford, who says: “The ability to synthesize
large genomes, including genomes for human cells, may transform our
understanding of genome biology and profoundly alter the horizons of
biotechnology and medicine.”
He further
told
The Guardian: “The information gained from synthesising human
genomes may be directly useful in generating treatments for almost any disease.”
 |
| Project lead Professor Jason Chin. Credit: Magdalen College, Oxford |
Project
member Dr Julian Sale, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge,
told BBC News
the research was the next giant leap in biology: "The sky is the limit. We
are looking at therapies that will improve people's lives as they age, that
will lead to healthier aging with less disease as they get older. We are
looking to use this approach to generate disease-resistant cells we can use to
repopulate damaged organs, for example in the liver and the heart, even the
immune system.”
Consider
me impressed.
Professor Matthew
Hurles, director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, explained to BBC News
the advantage of synthesizing DNA: “Building DNA from scratch allows us to test
out how DNA really works and test out new theories, because currently we can
only really do that by tweaking DNA in DNA that already exists in living
systems."
It’s mind-blowing
to think about the potential benefits that could come of this work, but the
potential risks are equally consequential. Designer babies, enhanced humans,
hybrids with other animals – synthetic DNA might accommodate all those and
more. The sky is the limit indeed.
The project
leaders are aware that there are important ethical considerations in such work,
and so are including a companion social science program, called Care-full
Synthesis, that is being led by Professor Joy Zhang from the Centre for Global
Science and Epistemic Justice at the University of Kent. It plans to undertake
a “transdisciplinary and transcultural investigation into the socio-ethical,
economic, and policy implications of synthesising human genomes,” placing
particular emphasis on “fostering inclusivity within and across nation-states,
while engaging emerging public–private partnerships and new interest groups.”
“With
Care-full Synthesis, through empirical studies across Europe, Asia-Pacific,
Africa, and the Americas, we aim to establish a new paradigm for accountable
scientific and innovative practices in the global age,” says Professor Zhang.
“One that explores the full potential of synthesising technical possibilities
and diverse socio-ethical perspectives with care.”
That may prove
to be a harder task that synthesizing a human chromosome.
 |
| Working out the socio-ethical perspectives is going to be harder than this, Credit: Microsoft Designer |
SynHG is
not the only project looking at synthetic DNA; it is a technology whose time is
coming. Does anyone think that researchers in China aren’t working on this? Does
anyone think they’re equally looking at the ethical considerations? Or maybe
the next breakthrough will be some U.S start-up, that is gambling big on a use
for synthetic DNA and would be expecting a unicorn-level return.
Professor
Bill Earnshaw, a genetic scientist at Edinburgh University, warned BBC News:
“The genie is out of the bottle. We could have a set of restrictions now, but
if an organisation who has access to appropriate machinery decided to start
synthesising anything, I don't think we could stop them."
But Wellcome’s
Dr. Tom Collins, who greenlit the funding, told BBC News: “We asked
ourselves what was the cost of inaction. This technology is going to be
developed one day, so by doing it now we are at least trying to do it in as
responsible a way as possible and to confront the ethical and moral questions
in as upfront way as possible."
Kudos to Wellcome for building these considerations into the project. They’d be considered too woke in the U.S. And kudos for acknowledging the costs of inaction, which many policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere fail to recognize.
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We’ve made
remarkable progress on DNA in my lifetime. When I was born, it had just been
discovered. The Human
Genome Project launched in 1990 and the first sequence of the human genome
by 2003. The CRISPR
revolution – allowing gene editing -- started in 2012, and we’re now doing personalized
gene editing therapy. “Remarkable”
is too mild a word.
But
there’s still so much we don’t know. We don’t always know when/why genes turn
on/off. We still have a very imperfect understanding of which diseases are genetic
and which genes cause them, under what circumstances. And, for heaven’s sake, what
is all that “junk DNA” doing? Is it just left over from evolution doing its
long kludge towards survival, or does it carry some importance we haven’t
learned yet?
Those
are the kinds of things SynHG might help us better understand, and I can’t wait
to see what it finds out.
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