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Why Jurassic Park is closer than you think
Saturday, January 17, 2015 18:59
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January 13, 2015
Written by Quinn Minten
Written by Quinn Minten
A new startup company, Cambrian Genomics, has enabled the average citizen to modify or create DNA, literally inventing new life forms. Cambrian, the brainchild of Austin Heinz, has found funding from a variety of venture capitalists, raising $10 million to expand the business. Currently, most of Cambrian’s orders come from pharmaceutical companies, but anyone with the money — not an enormous expense, only five to six cents per DNA letter — can design and print whatever their imagination wishes.
Heinz views the technology as more than just the science fiction it would seem to be; he believes it will one day be possible to design and print modified humans — basically, to make designer babies. Of course, the power to design new life raises important ethical issues, and has not just a few people alarmed. As it stands, there are several major problems with the future which Heinz has envisioned.
First, there is currently no real regulation on the technology Cambrian uses. Though the government, in the form of the Food and Drug Administration, plays a certain role in regulating genetic modification, there is not at present a set of definite rules for the modifications enabled by Cambrian. Namely, because it is not the company itself that is modifying organisms, but rather, the third-party who orders them, current laws will not cover Cambrian’s business. This allows anyone with a little money to create absolutely anything, regardless of whether it is actually safe or not; a design for, say, a real-life werewolf might be interesting, but probably not a good thing to let run around. Unless Cambrian itself takes part in regulating the creation of what people want to invent, an unlikely possibility given Heinz’s beliefs about trying to “democratize creation,” then there is no one out there — yet — to prevent what is imagined from literally running wild.
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Source: http://nesaranews.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-jurassic-park-is-closer-than-you.html
