Playing God

[Winstonm]

THE $73.5 billion global biotech business may soon have to grapple with a discovery that calls into question the scientific principles on which it was founded.

 

Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of how genes function. The exhaustive four-year effort was organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute and carried out by 35 groups from 80 organizations around the world. To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a “tidy collection of independent genes” after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, such as a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease.

 

Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood. According to the institute, these findings will challenge scientists “to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do.”

 

 

This reminds me of a research paper I read about 5 years ago, which concluded that know one knew exactly what would happen, that due to the interactions it was like introducing rabbits to Australia.

 

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business...1e1b180&ei=5070

 

(Free sign up may be needed.)

[BebopKid]

I'm not surprised that genetics is more complicated than scientists thought.

 

No scientist has ever been able to create a viable strand of DNA from scratch. They have only been able to alter existing DNA, and a relatively few number of times in the grand scheme.

[EricK]

Was it scientists who held the traditional view about simple non-overlapping genes, or was it science reporters and laymen?

 

I am not a professional scientist and this "discovery" doesn't come as a surprise to me - anybody who understands evolution would know that this is bound to be how genes work in the real world.

[helene_t]

Was it scientists who held the traditional view about simple non-overlapping genes, or was it science reporters and laymen?

 

I am not a professional scientist and this "discovery" doesn't come as a surprise to me - anybody who understands evolution would know that this is bound to be how genes work in the real world.

Correct. No sober scientist would ever claim that genes work independently of other genes.

 

For some purposes, extremely over-simplified main-effect-only models are used because more realistic models cannot be supported by the sparse data available, or because the scope of the study is limited to an extremely artificial all-other-factors-kept-constant setting, or because it would be impossible to communicate more complex models to a particular audience. Or simply because the details of the more complex models have not been worked out.

 

This is something completely different from "believing" in the extremely over-simplified models.

 

Interaction between genes has been known for some time. Concrete examples were described in the biology books I read at secondary school in the early 80s, and I would be very surprised if you can't find examples in the scientific literature dating back to the 60s. Quite possibly even to era before the discovery of DNA.

[Gerben42]

This article is called "lobbying against biotech", also I object to the name of this thread.

[mike777]

THE $73.5 billion global biotech business may soon have to grapple with a discovery that calls into question the scientific principles on which it was founded.

 

Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of how genes function. The exhaustive four-year effort was organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute and carried out by 35 groups from 80 organizations around the world. To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a “tidy collection of independent genes” after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, such as a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease.

 

Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood. According to the institute, these findings will challenge scientists “to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do.”

 

 

This reminds me of a research paper I read about 5 years ago, which concluded that know one knew exactly what would happen, that due to the interactions it was like introducing rabbits to Australia.

 

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business...1e1b180&ei=5070

 

(Free sign up may be needed.)

I am bit confused here.

1) are they saying the science and those teaching are idiots?

2) or are they saying they are idiots who teach the teachers are idoits?

 

 

3) based on the cites quoted here it seems nothing, i repeat nothing is new. BIO is very hard and the rest of us, finance majors, are trying our best.

[Winstonm]

I think the point of the article was more financial in nature, as the patents biotech companies own turn out to be non-specific.

[Al_U_Card]

Strangely, genetics is all about specificity. Talk about human error....lol

 

In the rush to gain control, once again we find ourselves in a pickle or a dead end because everyone thinks about money and power and status.

[barmar]

I agree with Helene. I read lots of layman-oriented books and articles about genetics, and none of them have ever suggested that genes are neat and tidy. There's no such thing as a "gene for X", except in some very special cases. Furthermore, there simply aren't enough genes to build organisms as complex as mammals if each gene had just a single function.

 

For an idea of how really complex this is, read Dawkins's The Extended Phenotype. He points out that many features and behaviors don't even come from the genes of the organism displaying them, they come from interaction with the environment and other organisms. For instance, the genes of beavers work with the genes of trees to create dams, but good luck finding the gene for becoming part of a dam in the tree's genome.