New Laws for New Tech

The Geron Corp., a Bay Area biotechnology company, based its futuristic-sounding name on the word “gerontology” because its biologists were looking for no less than the keys to human longevity.

Earlier this year, they found one: a technique for reversing the clock in DNA that limits the life span of human cells to about 50 divisions.

In this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Geron’s scientists report something equally remarkable: They have demonstrated how “stem cells”--the human cells that are produced shortly after a sperm fertilizes a human egg--could be converted into cells capable of repairing specific body parts. Human trials are just beginning, but Geron researchers have already shown that heart-specialized stem cells can repair ailing hearts in mice.

California should be cheering on the Geron Corp., but, ironically, a law passed last year actually threatens to fine the company up to $1 million if it continues its research in the state.

To ensure that their specially programmed stem cells will not be rejected by patients’ immune systems, Geron researchers want to try inserting portions of patients’ DNA into the stem cells. Last year, however, the California Legislature passed a law outlawing the transfer of any DNA into a human egg cell.

The bill was intended to ban human cloning, and it should be refined to do just that: that is, to ban not the practice of DNA transfer but the creation of a cloned human child.

The story of the bill, however, has a broader lesson to offer. It underscores the dangers inherent when legislators craft heavy-handed laws in an attempt to control technologies they don’t understand and whose future cannot be confidently foretold.

It’s a lesson that could prove useful to lawmakers in Congress, who plan to hold hearings into the implications of the Geron discoveries when they return in January.

The Geron researchers work with fertilized human eggs. Some anti-abortion groups equate these with viable fetuses and are calling for Congress to ban all stem cell research. As Judie Brown of the American Life League puts it, “It doesn’t matter if it’s done in the womb or a petri dish, it’s still killing.”

Responding to such concerns, Congress has already banned the use of federal money on research involving human embryos. That includes stem cell research, which many scientists regard as the most promising hope of a cancer cure.

Rather than reflexively tightening the ban to prevent private companies like Geron from conducting unsubsidized stem cell research, Congress should consult with people like Francis Collins, a devout Christian and director of human genetic research at the National Institutes of Health, who is seeking ethical ways of resolving abortion foes’ concerns. Scientists could, for instance, promise to use stem cells left over after successful fertility treatments, not embryos derived from abortions. This would not satisfy every abortion opponent, but good policy is built on compromise.

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration, viewing stem cells as kinds of “medical devices,” said it had authority to regulate them. That’s a stretch, but the agency is on to a promising solution. New biotechnologies should not be controlled by overly broad legislation, but neither should they be removed from public debate. Ideally, they should be overseen by an agency whose director is accountable to the president, the Congress and the American people.

In this biotechnology era, the words “pro life” have become far more complicated than political sloganeering makes them out to be. More Americans need to enter the debate and figure out what they mean.