For the past four billion odd years, an incredibly complex set of chemical reactions has repeated trillions of times, replicating a beautiful double helix structured protein trillions of times, in a process, we call life. Now and then something went wrong in the replication process, and a new molecule, ever so slightly different was produced. We call these mutations, and over time, the process of natural selection whittled back these mutations such that only those most suited to their environment survived. This is the process of natural selection and until now it has been the way which all life on Earth has formed.
But this is no longer the case. Today genes can be written, edits and replicated using advanced scientific techniques. Our ability today to create new life forms is fundamentally different from anything which has ever occurred before in the history of life on Earth.
Earlier this year, when the entomologist Ruth Mueller open a container of genetically modified mosquitoes in a high-security lab, she wasn’t just experimenting with a powerful new tool in biotechnology. She was implementing a change to the laws of inheritance that govern all life on Earth.
The mosquitoes she released, each of them carrying a carefully engineered ‘gene drive’ designed to spread through a group of mosquitoes, would test whether humans could successfully force a trait through the whole of a free-living population. Gene drives can theoretically spread themselves to every living creature within a population of interbreeding organisms. They change the genetic rules wherever they travel. Could this be the end for Malaria, Dengue Fever, Zika and all other mosquito-borne diseases?
So how are we to manage the consequences of our actions here?
I think that we need to look back at the through history at the three great biological transformations that humanity has previously engineered…the exploitation of fossil fuels, the globalisation of ecosystems after the Colombian Exchange and European Settlement of Australia, and the agrarian revolution.
Let’s start with the most recent. Just a few hundred years ago, we recognised the enormous energy stored in fossil fuels. By leveraging the biological process which occurred millions of years ago, we have powered a period of sustained growth that hitherto had been unimaginable. Collectively we are much healthier, wealthier and happier than could have ever been the case in a subsistence economy. But this has not been without its costs. The majority of the world’s wilderness has been lost, and the release of carbon atoms trapped underground for millions of years has significant Earth’s atmosphere, accelerating the greenhouse effect with perhaps catastrophic effects. Here lies one of the high hopes of synthetic biology, perhaps with the right smarts we can recapture much of that carbon dioxide and convert it into new materials or fuels.
The second example was the so-called Colombian Exchange which saw the newly created global network of trade shuffle together creatures that had previously been separated by the oceans. Horses, Cattle and Cotton were introduced to the Americas, while corn, potatoes, chilli and tobacco to Europe, Asia and Africa. On the whole there was much gained from this exchange…unless of course you were one of the millions of Native Americans or Aboriginals who died from diseases like smallpox, measles or other pathogens which rampaged through these populations which had no immunity. In Australia we saw Foxes, Rabbits, Camels and Cane Toads invade the ecosystems unsettling the delicate balances which had existed for millennia. Again here there are lessons to be learned about the potential impacts of synthetically modified life, and the potential for manmade catastrophes.
The earliest biological transformation, and arguably the most significant – domestication – produced what was hitherto the greatest change in how humans lived their lives. Haphazardly, and then purposely humans bred cereals to be more bountiful, livestock more docile, dogs to be more obedient and cats to be more companionable (this one a partial success at best). These changes allowed us to move on from being hunter-gatherers, settling down into farms, then villages and later cities. Humans also domesticated themselves, creating space for subsistence agricultural and the oppressive feudal systems which it supported.
Synthetic biology will have a similar cascading range of effects, potentially transforming our relationships with nature and each other. The choices that will be made in our lifetime will have profound impacts for the future of not just our species but all species on this planet.
But, I am optimistic, because unlike the previous changes whose impacts were only ever discussed in retrospect, here we are today considering, debating and discussing the consequences of our actions. While our foresight is never perfect, we have the opportunities to look forward to the world we are creating. Our foresight and wisdom are never perfect, but together we can imagine a new world.
It won’t be life as we know it, but life as we make it.