On the politics of naming and owning genes.
In her New York Times column, Re:framing, Denise Caruso addresses recent discoveries in human genetics as they relate to the current platform for biotechnology and gene patenting guidelines.
The article begins by stating that:
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.
Over at Evolgen, many commentators debate the scientific accuracy of Caruso’s arguments. I think it’s a mistake to make the argument that the scientific accuracy of her article is what’s at stake. Caruso’s point is that there is a gap between the science, the policy, and the biotech industry’s tactics. We’ve known for awhile that genes are not discrete entities. Unfortunately, it takes a direct hit to the human psyche for people to realize that the biological world applies to them too.
I’m not out to defend Caruso, but I do share her perspective that many perspectives are needed to address these issues. In response to what I thought was a fairly limited set of responses to her article, I contributed my own comment to the Evogen blog:
I agree that it’s easy to misunderstand Caruso’s arguments, especially if one takes a linear perspective towards them. I would have definitely preferred more background on the ENCODE project, but given the nuance of the science involved, perhaps her tactic of stating that the landscape (pun intended) is more complex than public policy reflects is more appropriate for the Times.For one thing, Caruso’s argument doesn’t seem to be based at the molecular level at all. Caruso takes a population level perspective that’s needed to recognize and understand what is relevant to ownership and commodification of genetic processes. Genomics is only the vector; what she’s really talking about is capitalism.
Though it’s not clear if she is using “network effect” to refer to intragenomic interactions or intergenomic ones, her examples of bacterial resistance and malaria suggest that she’s referring to intergenomic interactions. My take on what she is reacting to is the observation that genetic interactions have many epistatic or non-linear effects while the prevalent assumption for biotech and policy-makers is that that genes are predominantly additive and that a predictable relationship exists between gene identity and outcome.
Starting with popular science is enough. The way genes are portrayed in popular culture suggests that there are genes for heart disease and genes for aggression and so on. That’s how biotech gets funded, no? By stipulating that specific genes have appreciable effects on health, the value of those genes can be measured, built, and sold as a product. This is misleading. Yes, we can associate disease variation with specific loci, but it’s is never the case that genes cause anything. Genetic material is one component of a very non-linear system that includes developmental timing and environmental interactions. As every evolutionary geneticist knows, selecting on a single trait often results in correlated responses across many other traits. Given that traits are based on the interactions of many genes, moving genes among individuals doesn’t bring the whole system along in the manner that, say, artificial selection does.
By stating that a gene has a distinct function, we are in essence naming it and categorizing it according to that function. For genes to be patented, a recognizable function has to be ascribed to them. We can say that the “terminator gene” has a protein binding function, but can’t we also say that the “terminator gene” also has a social unrest function if we expand our observations beyond the lab? Though we can’t directly establish a cause and effect relationship between large-scale social interactions and political protests and the gene, we know intuitively that the effect of of this transgene isn’t limited to corn or cotton.
It’s true that the science isn’t particularly new. What’s new is that people are starting to ask relevant questions about how the ownership and practices of industry takes into account the mechanistic possibilities for creating value as well as the relevant downstream biological and social process. This is not something that any single individual or profession can either validate or invalidate.
I’ll agree that “the economic and regulatory foundation on which the entire biotechnology industry is built” is probably a mix of a lot of different factors. But why isn’t it based on “the presumption that genes operate independently”? When was the last time you heard a company say that a disease was attributed to many genes and only in certain contexts and we’re not entirely sure how and when, but please still buy our product? People want certainty and hope, especially when their health is involved. Reducing the message down to single genes does that. All that Caruso is saying is that this may mean bigger problems down the line if we don’t actually revise our policy and language to match what we actually know about the world.
A correction to the original article at the HybridVigor blog
