Word: biotechs
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...biotech age will also give us more reason to guard our personal privacy. Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, got it wrong: rather than centralizing power in the hands of the state, DNA technology has empowered individuals and families. But the state will have an important role, making sure that no one, including insurance companies, can look at our genetic data without our permission or use it to discriminate against...
Huxley's scenario made sense back in 1932. Some American states were forcibly sterilizing the "feebleminded," and Hitler had praised these policies in Mein Kampf. But the biotech revolution that Huxley dimly foresaw has turned the logic of eugenics inside out. It lets parents choose genetic traits, whether by selective abortion, selective reimplanting of eggs fertilized in vitro or--in perhaps just a few years--injecting genes into fertilized eggs. In Huxley's day eugenics happened only by government mandate; now it will take government mandate--a ban on genetic tinkering--to prevent...
Whereas traditional drug companies focus on developing chemical compounds, the biotech industry prefers to use biological ones--hormones, proteins and other substances that either already exist in the body or can be created from scratch. Examples include interferon, the clot buster tPA and the new breast-cancer drug Herceptin...
...even among the rarefied biotech elite, there are mavericks who think they have a better idea. They want to move one step closer to the gene by targeting the RNA molecules that transfer information from genes to proteins. And they have the perfect molecular tool with which to do it. By synthesizing strands of DNA that are the mirror image of the RNA they wish to block, researchers can produce a drug that is more specific than anything else on the market. Because it interrupts the "sense" that the cell is trying to make of the RNA molecule...
Pitchforks? Nowadays we use guns. A so-called gene gun using gold bullets has become one of the standard methods for rewriting nature's codes. Pellets coated with DNA are fired into the chromosomes of a plant that biotech engineers wish to alter in some amazing way. Then, after patient cultivation to bring out the inserted trait, a prodigy is born. The transformed crop may be corn or cotton with a built-in insecticide, tomatoes that retain their fresh-picked texture on the shelf, or wheat with extra gluten, making for lighter, bouncier bread. The new crop of doctors...