The Future (82 page)
Authors: Al Gore
66
patterns that affect their function and role
ThermoScientific, “Overview of Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs),”
http://www.piercenet.com
.
67
ways that extend their range of functions and control their behavior
Ibid.
68
The Human Epigenome Project has made major advances
G. G. Sanghani et al., “Human Epigenome Project: The Future of Cancer Therapy,”
Inventi Impact: Pharm Biotech & Microbio
2012,
http://www.inventi.in/Article/pbm/94/12.aspx
.
69
epigenetic breakthroughs are already helping cancer patients
“Epigenetics Emerges Powerfully as a Clinical Tool,” Medical Xpress, September 12, 2012,
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-epigenetics-emerges-powerfully-clinical-tool.html
.
70
transform and commandeer them
Denise Caruso, “Synthetic Biology: An Overview and Recommendations for Anticipating and Addressing Emerging Risks,”
Science Progress
, November 12, 2008,
http://scienceprogress.org/2008/11/synthetic-biology/
.
71
custom chemicals that have value in the marketplace
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
72
less effective insulin produced from pigs and other animals
Lawrence K. Altman, “A New Insulin Given Approval for Use in U.S.,”
New York Times
, October 30, 1982.
73
significant improvements in artificial skin
Charles Q. Choi, “Spider Silk May Provide the Key to Artificial Skin,” MSNBC, August 9, 2011; Katharine Sanderson, “Artificial Skins Detect the Gentlest Touch,”
Nature
, September 12, 2010.
74
synthetic human blood
Fiona Macrae, “Synthetic Blood Created by British Scientists Could Be Used in Transfusions in Just Two Years,”
Daily Mail
, October 28, 2011.
75
diverse as fuel for vehicles
Michael Totty, “A Faster Path to Biofuels,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 16, 2011.
76
protein for human consumption
Jeffrey Bartholet, “When Will Scientists Grow Meat in a Petri Dish?,”
Scientific American
, May 17, 2011; H. L. Tuomisto, “Food Security and Protein Supply—Cultured Meat a Solution?,” 2010,
http://oxford.academia.edu/HannaTuomisto/Papers/740015/Food_Security_and_Protein_Supply_-Cultured_meat_a_solution
.
77
“a juggernaut already beyond the reach of governance”
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
78
“not only for one, but also for all humanity”
Jun Wang, Science, “Personal Genomes: For One and for All,”
Science
, February 11, 2011.
79
junk DNA actually contains millions of “on-off switches”
Gina Kolata, “Bits of Mystery DNA, Far from ‘Junk,’ Play Crucial Role,”
New York Times
, September 6, 2012.
80
“very complicated three-dimensional structure”
Brandon Keim, “New DNA Encyclopedia Attempts to Map Function of Entire Human Genome,”
Wired
, September 5, 2012.
81
first human genome ten years ago was approximately $3 billion
John Markoff, “Cost of Gene Sequencing Falls, Raising Hopes for Medical Advances,”
New York Times
, March 8, 2012.
82
to be available at a cost of only $1,000 per person
Ibid.
83
At that price, according to experts
Ibid.
84
“all important topics for future discussions”
Ibid.
85
gene-sequencing machine for less than $900
Oxford Nanopore Technologies, “Oxford Nanopore Introduces DNA ‘Strand Sequencing’ on the High-Throughput GridION Platform and Presents MinION,
a Sequencer the Size of a USB Memory Stick,” February 17, 2012,
http://www.nanoporetech.com/news/press-releases/view/39/
.
86
has long been measured by Moore’s Law
K. A. Wetterstrand, “DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Large-Scale Genome Sequencing Program,”
www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts
.
87
cost for sequencing began to drop at a significantly faster pace
Ibid.
88
increases in the length of DNA strands that can be quickly analyzed
Jeffrey Fisher and Mostafa Ronaghi, “The Current Status and Future Outlook for Genomic Technologies,” National Academy of Engineering, Winter 2010; Neil Bowdler, “1000 Genomes project maps 95% of all gene variations,” BBC, October 27, 2011.
89
breakneck speed for the foreseeable future
Ibid.
90
producing synthetic genomes
John Carroll, “Life Technologies Budgets $100M for Synthetic Biology Deals,”
Fierce Biotech
, June 3, 2010,
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/life-technologies-budgets-100m-synthetic-biology-deals/2010-06-03
.
91
introduction by Hammurabi of the first written set of laws
Paul Halsall, “Code of Hammurabi, c. 1780 BCE,” Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, March 1998,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.asp
.
92
“a new wave of organisms, an artificially provoked neo-life”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
The Phenomenon of Man
(New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 250.
93
who had already made history by sequencing his own genome
Emily Singer, “Craig Venter’s Genome,”
Technology Review
, September 4, 2007,
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408606/craig-venters-genome/
.
94
first live bacteria made completely from synthetic DNA
Joe Palca, “Scientists Reach Milestone on Way to Artificial Life,” NPR, May 20, 2010.
95
Venter had merely copied the blueprint of a known bacterium
Clive Cookson, “Synthetic Life,”
Financial Times
, July 27, 2012.
96
used the empty shell of another as the container for his new life-form
Clive Cookson, “Scientists Create a Living Organism,”
Financial Times
, May 20, 2010.
97
others marked it as an important turning point
Stuart Fox, “J. Craig Venter Institute Creates First Synthetic Life Form,”
Christian Science Monitor
, May 21, 2010.
98
free-living microbe known as
Mycoplasma genitalium
John Markoff, “In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism,”
New York Times
, July 21, 2012.
99
minimum amount of DNA information necessary for self-replication
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
100
“if there had been one,” Venter said
Ibid.
101
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”
William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
, 1.2.140–41.
102
E. O. Wilson, has been bitterly attacked
Jennifer Schuessler, “Lessons from Ants to Grasp Humanity,”
New York Times
, April 8, 2012; Richard Dawkins, “The Descent of Edward Wilson,”
Prospect
, May 24, 2012.
103
Wilson, who was but is no longer a Christian
Donna Winchester, “E.O. Wilson on Ants and God and Us,”
Tampa Bay Times
, November 14, 2008.
104
“decade by decade, century by century”
“The ‘Evidence for Belief’: An Interview with Francis Collins,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, April 17, 2008,
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/805/the-evidence-for-belief-an-interview-with-francis-collins
.
105
“then we can decide what metabolism we want it to have”
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
106
breakthroughs in health care
Warren C. Ruder, Ting Lu, and James J. Collins, “Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic,”
Science
, September 2, 2011.
107
energy production
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
108
environmental remediation
Caruso, “Synthetic Biology.”
109
and many other fields
Stephen C. Aldrich, James Newcomb, and Robert Carlson,
Genome Synthesis and Design Futures: Implications for the U.S. Economy
(Cambridge, MA: Bio Economic Research Associates, 2007).
110
destroy or weaken antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Ruder, Lu, and Collins, “Synthetic Biology Moving into the Clinic.”
111
killing other targeted bacteria until the infection subsides
Ibid.
112
vaccine development is also generating great hope
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
113
bird flu (H5N1) of 2007 and the so-called swine flu (H1N1) of 2009
Ibid.
114
ability to pass from one human to another through airborne transmission
“Bird Flu Pandemic in Humans Could Happen Any Time,” Reuters, June 21, 2012.
115
a new mutant of the virus begins spreading
Huib de Vriend, “Vaccines: The First Commercial Application of Synthetic Biology?,” Rathenau Instituut, July 2011.
116
using the tools of synthetic biology
Ibid.
117
decrease the cost and time of manufacturing of vaccines
Vicki Glaser, “Quest for Fully Disposable Process Stream,”
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
29, no. 5, March 1, 2009.
118
Some experts have also predicted
Aldrich, Newcomb, and Carlson,
Genome Synthesis and Design Futures
.
119
utilizing a “widely dispersed” strategy
Cookson, “Synthetic Life.”
120
“would not appear to him as indecent and unnatural”
J. B. S. Haldane, “Daedalus of Science and the Future,” February 4, 1923,
http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/courses/hon182/Daedalus_or_SCIENCE_AND_THE_FUTURE_JBS_Haldane.pdf
.
121
“We intuit and we feel”
Leon Kass,
Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity
(San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004), p. 150.
122
describes a feeling that itself lacks precision
Alexis Madrigal, “I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web,”
Atlantic
, February 29, 2012.
123
a method for producing spider silk
Rutherford, “Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the ‘Spider-Goats.’ ”
124
five times stronger than steel by weight
Other scientists have mimicked the molecular design of spider silk by synthesizing their own from a commercially available substance (polyurethane elastomer) treated with clay platelets only one nanometer (a billionth of a meter) thick and only 25 nanometers across, then carefully processing the mixture to create synthetic spider silk. This work has been funded by the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because the military applications are considered of such high importance. Rutherford, “Synthetic biology and the rise of the ‘spider-goats’ ”; “Nexia and US Army Spin the World’s First Man-Made Spider Silk Performance Fibers,” Eureka Alert, January 17, 2002,
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/nbi-nau011102.php
.
125
because of their antisocial, cannibalistic nature
Rutherford, “Synthetic Biology and the Rise of the ‘Spider-Goats.’ ”
126
became a threat to native trees and plants
Richard J. Blaustein, “Kudzu’s Invasion into Southern United States Life and Culture,” 2001,
www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/ja/ja_blaustein001.pdf
.
127
chain reaction in the ocean and create an unimaginable ecological Armageddon
Al Gore, “Planning a New Biotechnology Policy,”
Harvard Journal of Law and Technology
5 (1991): 19–30.
128
who were confident that such an event was absurdly implausible
Ibid.
129
diversion of trillions of dollars into weaponry
Wil S. Hylton, “How Ready Are We for Bioterrorism?,”
New York Times Magazine
, October 26, 2011.
130
threatened the survival of human civilization?
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 4, 2007.
131
are now often described as probably overblown
Wil S. Hylton, “Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World,”
New York Times Magazine
, June 3, 2012.
132
“I don’t think anyone knows”
Ibid.
133
is the possibility of a new generation of biological weapons
Alexander Kelle, “Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity,”
EMBO Reports
10 (2009): S23–S27.
134
Soviet Union in a secret biological weapons program
Ibid.
135
“to attack genetically specific sub-populations”
Ibid.
136
publishing the full genetic sequence that accompanied their papers
Ibid.