Giving people the Zinc Finger: potential great uses, potential unnerving dilemmas

In college, I worked on the Human Genome Project at the Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, I worked summers in high school at the NIH National Cancer Institute. One of the most important things I learned during those years (other than the importance of a control in an experiment) is the law of unintended consequences. The researchers I worked under were incredibly brilliant men and women, and also very ethical. The work they were doing could have the potential to save lives in various ways.

At the same time, they constantly preached to me, a young innocent, the laws of unintended consequences. They knew that a lot of their work in mappig the human genome, finding why cells kills cells and others live, coul be used for good and bad. Sometimes decisions were made not to go down certain routes.

Though it has been written about over and over again, we must constantly stay close to the research being conducted. Profit is an incredible motivator (I think a bigger motivator than just doing harm to people). We must watch how companies use technology and constantly put the pressure on them to use it for good. I believe there will only be more regulation as technologies evolve, not less. This is probably a good thing.

http://s.nyt.com/u/ACD

Posted via email from Suneil Mandava's Posterous