BY LETISIA MÁRQUEZ
UCLA Today

International leaders in the field of genetic research convened Jan. 26 at a symposium on “The Storefront Genome” to discuss the rapidly changing field of genetics and the future moral and ethical dilemmas that will come with it.

Hosted by the Center for Society, the Individual and Genetics, participants explored such topics as the moral issues associated with creating “designer babies” and the potential for genetic testing to someday lengthen an individual’s life span.

“If we can know with certainty our individual genetic makeup, what are the medical, legal, ethical and personal obligations in responding to potentially life-altering information?” Chancellor Albert Carnesale asked as he opened the forum, which attracted about 350 people.

“How do we resolve the moral and legal quandaries that may well arise? We’re not likely to have definitive answers to these questions by the end of today’s session,” he said. “But I know we will be better informed about the issues, and better prepared to address them in the future.”

Leroy Hood, one of the world’s leading scientists in molecular biotechnology and genomics and founder of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Wash., said that in about 20 to 25 years, doctors may be able to analyze a person’s genome and outline a probabilistic health history.

The patient could then receive preventive medicines to circumvent the limitations of his or her genes. Such developments would enable people to remain healthy for 70, 80 or even 90 years, Hood predicted.

Nancy Wexler, a neurology and psychiatry professor at Columbia University whose research was integral to the discovery of the gene for Huntington’s disease and the development of a test that can determine carriers of the gene, said science must keep moving forward.

“Right now, we can predict,” Wexler said. “We can’t prevent. We’re in that gap and we have to push through to the other end.”

A Webcast of the conference is available at: http://www.arc2.ucla.edu/csig/