A woolly issue

In February 1997, Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be successfully cloned. A nucleus taken from a cell from the udder of an adult sheep was implanted into an egg which had had its own nucleus removed. This egg was then transferred into another sheep, where it developed into Dolly. Dolly was named by the Scots researchers who created her after Dolly Parton because of her mammary origins. Her existence has raised an intense moral debate on how far we should go in meddling with our genes. As early as 1982, the first use of genetic engineering came on the market in the form of insulin manufactured from bacteria. Genetic engineering usually involves taking genes from one species and inserting them into another in an attempt to transfer a desired trait.

In traditional breeding by farmers, variety has been achieved through selection from the genetic traits that already exist within the gene pool of one species. In 1980, the Supreme Court in the US decided that a life form (in this case, a bacterium genetically engineered to digest oil) could be patented. The gene pool of plants, animals and humans was a commodity to be bought and sold. By 1990, 50 per cent of plant patent applications in Europe were coming from just eight multinational corporations. The annual market value of the genetically engineered products (mostly pharmaceuticals) produced in 1995 exceeded $15 billion. In 1996, soybeans grown in the US were genetically engineered by Monsanto to be resistant to their best-selling herbicide Roundup.

Widespread disquiet about the unknown long-term effects of genetically modified crops has resulted in their banning by Austria and Luxembourg, and a temporary moratorium on the approval of new GM foods, accompanied by demands for tests and labelling by members of the EU. In the US last year, 20.5 million hectares were sown commercially with genetically engineered crops.

In 1987 the oncomouse was genetically engineered at Harvard to predispose it to cancer, to be used in cancer research. By 1996, over 60,000 transgenic (genetically engineered) animals were born in the UK alone, mostly for biomedical research. Others were being engineered for experiments to assess their potential as spare part factories for human transplant operations.

In 1992, a British scientist engineered pig embryos with a human gene, which reduces the likelihood that the organs will be rejected following transplants. Although this means that organ transplants from pigs may now be possible, there are concerns that xeno-transplantation could transmit animal viruses to human patients. Sheep and pigs engineered with human growth hormone have been born with deformities and have developed arthritis and diabetes.

Reports of the first instance of cloning of human embryos came through in the US in 1993, accompanied by widespread debate on the morality of cloning people. The British government has said that cloning of human embryos should be banned but that experiments using "cell nucleus replacement" with human cells should be allowed for medical research. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1988 in the US as a 15-year $3 billion international collaborative effort to map the over 100,000 genes and three billion chemical compounds contained within the human genome. Geneticists hope that when the map is complete they will be able to cure all known genetic diseases.

In the meantime, DNA samples from indigenous peoples all over the world are being harvested. Earlier this year, a US arm of the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Roche, acquired access to the genetic, medical and genealogical records of the entire population of Iceland for a sum of $200 million. Meanwhile a report commissioned by Christian Aid estimated that biopiracy is cheating Third World countries out of $4.5 billion a year. Communities end up having to pay multinational corporations for the right to use something that was previously part of their legacy, like the Neem tree in India. ca change.

All articles published so far in this series are available at The Irish Times on the Web at: www.ireland.com/newspaper/special/1999/eyeon20