GENETIC MEDICINE
Prescription for Conflict

Program Summary

Download a PDF version of the transcript.

Producer: Kathy McAnally
The Human Cloning Race Feature Producer: Rusten Hogness
On the Air Beginning: November 2001

We may be on the verge of a medical revolution, with treatments for diseases like Parkinson's and cancer right around the corner.

But amidst the hope and hype surrounding genetic technology, there is also a difficult set of unanswered questions. How safe is the research on genetic medicine? Is it ethical and aimed at the public good?

In this program, we explore three technologies that have raised public debate: gene therapy, stem cell research and xenotransplanation.

Gene therapy is a set of approaches intended to replace damaged genes with healthy ones, often using a disarmed virus to deliver a package of "good" DNA into the patient's cells.

Although there were no major breakthroughs early on, the treatment seemed fairly safe until 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died during a gene therapy clinical trial in 1999. This tragedy caused a reexamination of the safety of such studies and federal regulators ordered some of them stopped. Among these were studies that used an inserted gene to promote the growth of blood vessels in heart disease patients.

Critics say promising research was stymied. FDA regulators counter that safety must come first.

Stem cell research is another promising therapy that has touched a social and political nerve in recent years.

Embryonic stem cells are cells in an embryo that have yet to form specific cell types like blood, bone, muscle or nerve cells. The discovery that they can be nudged to become almost any tissue has caused a boom in research into their potential to heal everything from nerve damage to brain injury.

There has also been a more quiet revolution in the study of adult stem cells, which can also be made to grow certain types of tissue.

Embryonic stem cell research became the big science story of 2001 as the public debated whether it is right to destroy embryos in the quest to save lives. Amid the furor, private companies like California-based Geron continued to pursue their research.

"Genetic Medicine: Prescription for Conflict" also looks at the field of xenotransplantation, a fancy word for using animal tissues and organs in human patients.

There are thousands of people on waiting lists for organ donations who will never get them in time. If animal parts could be made compatible to the human body, they could help ease the supply problem and save lives.

The main issue here is how to weigh the potential benefit of a promising therapy against the potential of releasing a new disease into the population. We meet Jeff Getty, a man with AIDS who pressed his doctors to try a baboon bone marrow transplant. His story raises issues about community consent versus an individual's willingness to take on risk.

Finally, we touch on the debates around germ-line gene therapy and cloning, two equally controversial areas of medical research. Each raises fundamental questions about who we are and how much tinkering with our genome we are willing to accept.

Special Feature: The Human Cloning Race

What is human cloning, and how is it done? This feature examines the methods, implications, and perils of attempting to clone humans.

Topic In-Depth: The safety of clinical trials

Last Updated: July 2004