In the United Kingdom, we officially work to create the first completely synthetic human genome. A revolutionary step forward that would open the doors to personalized cellular therapies, transplants without donors, anti-aging treatments and much, much more. But also a leap in the dark, with bioethical implications and health risks and security difficult to predict. The project is called Synthetic Human Genome Project, and has just received a 10 million pound funding and a leading endorsement by the WellCome Trust, the richest beneficial body in the world dedicated to promoting medical research.
The new research program is an ideal continuation of the work done in the 90s by the Human Genome Project, a huge scientific effort that led to the first complete sequencing of the human genome. The program was completed in 2003, and more than 20 years later, our ability to read the DNA have advanced so much that there are those who decided that the time has come to write it alone.
The program includes the collaboration of the Universities of Cambridge, Kent, Manchester and Oxford, and the Imperial College of London, and aims to obtain a first synthetic human chromosome over the next 5-10 years. To get to a whole cell at that point there will still be 22 more. But already so, the goal is extremely ambitious, and to be completed it will require the development of completely new technologies and scientific knowledge. At the moment, in fact, it is impossible to summarize portions of DNA so large.
The greatest synthetic genome ever created is in fact that of a synthetic bacterium of the escherichia coli species, which has about four million couples of nitrogen bases (the “letters” with which the DNA is written). To obtain a human chromosome, 125 million are needed. For a whole cell, you get to 3 million. This should make clear the difficulties that the project will encounter. But also its potential: being able to write from scratch the genes of human cells, these can be studied, transformed into therapies, adapted to resist infections, modified to treat genetic pathologies and much more.
Obviously, in the same way they can be used to hurt: in the wrong hands, such technology can easily produce biological weapons or be used to genetically change human beings. “The genius is out of the bottle,” commented in this regard the geneticist of the University of Edinburgh Bill Earnshaw interviewed by the BBC. “We can also have a series of rules today, but if an organization that has access to the appropriate tools decides to summarize anything, I don’t think we would be able to prevent it.”
This kind of concerns are obvious, as the Synthetic Human Genome Project researchers are recognized, which in fact provides for a twin study entrusted to sociologists and other social science specialists, to examine the ethical, legal and social implications of these new technologies.