The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics is a product of both
the past and the future. It is at once an acknowledgement of
lessons learned from the world’s nuclear history and a
mechanism to help society keep up with science in the
fast-developing field of genetics. During World War II, there was
little discussion about how the Manhattan Project ““ the
building of the atomic bomb ““ would impact human society,
little thought about the possibility of an increased chance of
catastrophic warfare, said Chancellor Albert Carnesale, who has
studied the subject and represented the United States in
negotiating limits on nuclear weapons. The issues that could arise
as scientists learn more about genetics are many, ranging from how
society deals with genetic differences between groups of people to
who gets access to health care services derived from genetic
research, he said. Scientists finished mapping the human genome in
2003, identifying all genes in human DNA. Genes produce enzymes and
other proteins that govern everything from the way cells function
to eye color. “One thing that was clear as I looked at the
history of, say, the Manhattan Project, was that almost no thought
had been given to what would be the implications to society for the
development of these weapons,” Carnesale said. “You
don’t have to wait until the problems arise before you start
thinking about it,” he added. So he gave his support about
four years ago to the creation of the Center for Society and
Genetics, which examines the role genetics plays in fields like
anthropology and philosophy, and vice versa. The subjects they
tackle touch a seemingly endless array of issues: patenting genes;
stem cell research; the history of genetics; genetic privacy and
discrimination; and biotechnology and medicine. The center’s
members are hoping to win approval by September for a minor in
society and genetics and a new freshman general education cluster
that deals with issues in the area of study. The backgrounds of the
center’s directors reflect its focus on interdisciplinary
methods: Edward McCabe is a pediatrician; Norton Wise, a historian
of physics. The way the center bridges North and South campus makes
it unique, said Associate Director Sally Gibbons. Few universities
have programs of a comparable nature, partly because higher
education has historically centered on individual fields like
biology or political science, she said. “The disciplinary
boundaries inform how people get hired or tenured,” Gibbons
said, “and so it’s hard to break those
boundaries.” When Wise decided about two years ago to join
McCabe in developing the center, he wanted to emphasize the
coevolution of genetics and society. While experts tend to address
ethical and legal problems related to genetics, Wise argued that
viewing society and genetics as developing side by side would be a
more prudent approach. History proves the point, he said. For
example, people of cultures that traditionally relied on sources
other than cattle for sustenance are more likely to be lactose
intolerant, unable to comfortably eat dairy products, he said. The
lack of a dairy culture affected the evolution of people’s
genomes. This kind of development cannot be captured by simply
studying the natural or social sciences, Wise said. “The
problems of the world do not come in the boxes we call
departments,” he said. “They do not come in the boxes
we call physics, or chemistry, or whatever.”
Educational Initiatives The Center for Society and Genetics is
located in a quiet corner of Hershey Hall, down two long corridors
from the building’s main doors. The staff members occupy a
few offices and a conference room that doubles as a kitchen. A
microwave and small refrigerator share the space with a four-burner
stove, a printer, and fax and office supplies that sit on one
counter. But the modesty of the center’s physical appearance
tells little of its goals. Besides generating research, the
center’s staff is active in developing educational
initiatives at UCLA as demonstrated by its key role in drafting
plans for the proposed cluster on sex and gender and a minor in
society and genetics. The minor, if approved, would encourage
students from North and South campus to sit together in the
classroom and think about genetics through an interdisciplinary
lens. Gibbons said the hope is that the subject, society and
genetics, would attract students from varied fields ““ from
future scientists curious about the ethical and other societal
implications of their work to pre-business students interested in
the biotechnology industry. “In the (upper division) courses
you’re really digging into, you’re not really close to
people in other majors,” Gibbons said. The new minor would
change that, she said. The core faculty of the proposed cluster
would be comprised of specialists in behavioral neuroscience and
genetics, evolutionary psychology, sociology, and human genetics
and medicine. According to the proposal for the series, courses
would discuss a slew of questions about gender and sex such as:
What determines our sexual orientation and sexual desires? How does
the law define the sex of an individual, and how does it treat
males and females differently? How does politics influence what
questions scientists are allowed to ask? How does our gender
influence the diseases we get?
Looking Forward Following the success of the Human Genome
Project in 2003, there were many people who believed that the
future of the human race was written in DNA and that DNA was the
blueprint of life, McCabe said. “What is very clear is that
is false,” he said. “It’s completely
erroneous.” Babies born to mothers starved in the third
trimester of pregnancy, after the children’s DNA has already
formed, are prone to suffer from diabetes, obesity and heart
disease because of the way their genes express themselves, McCabe
said. The question isn’t nature or nurture, McCabe said. The
environment has as much to do with how people turn out as the genes
encrypted in their DNA. The genetics revolution is still young,
Gibbons said. There is still much unexplored terrain. The Center
for Society and Genetics will operate with a core group of about 20
faculty, staff and students for the next few years, encouraging
dialogue between the public, the media and experts of all
disciplines as the science progresses, she said. The center has
hired a historian of biology and biomedicine and is seeking faculty
in other areas including philosophy. There are plans to move to a
larger space with about a dozen offices. Staff and faculty members
are looking forward so that perhaps the human race can avoid
repeating the mistakes of the 1940s. “Scientists are aware of
the fact that they cannot work in a vacuum,” Gibbons said.
“(After World War II), there’s been a realization that
the implications of the science that is getting done … are so
vast that scientists alone, I don’t want to say cannot, but
maybe, should not, be the sole proprietors (of) the decision about
what to do with the science.”