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The Genome Writ Large

Natural History, May, 2001 by Henry S. F. Jr. Cooper

A new exhibition unravels the wonder, the promise, and the potential dangers of human DNA research.

This past February 12, Charles Darwin's birthday, two versions of the human genome were announced--one produced by a public organization, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, based in Cambridge, England, and the other by a private company, Celera Genomics in Rockville, Maryland. Now, on May 26, the Museum opens the exhibition "The Genomic Revolution." Dealing largely with invisible matter, the exhibition relies on models that gleam like jewels under spotlights and on glowing images projected across computer monitors and high-definition plasma screens, while LED displays spell out news of the genome direct from the laboratory in bright, ever-flowing letters.

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Just past the entrance is a small installation devoted to James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick's revolutionary 1953 double-helix model of the structure of the DNA molecule. And straight ahead is a brand-new, floor-to-ceiling rendering of the double helix as an organic, undulating, slightly metallic serpent of the night. It's a long way from Watson and Crick's mechanical, tinker-toy affair.

Also near the entrance, in an encased glass vial, is a sample of the real thing: a single strand of DNA replicated thousands of times and forming a white mush. A parabolic mirror inside the case makes the DNA material appear to float overhead like a hologram. Three and a quarter billion nucleotides--the structural units of DNA--on twenty-three pairs of chromosomes are contained in the nucleus of each human cell. If teased apart and laid end to end, the molecules would form an invisible thread nearly six feet long. The information in such a thread, if printed out, would fill 140 Manhattan phone books--and nearby, in three stacks, are exactly that number of them.

In a small theater close to the big DNA model is a five-minute animation loop that explains the uses of genomics in medicine, both to treat disease and to prolong human life. The hope is that in decades to come, as genes that cause various diseases are identified and as ways of removing them or splicing in new ones are perfected, many illnesses will be treated genetically or even prevented altogether. Already the genes for many diseases, from sickle-cell anemia to heart disease, have been pinpointed, though genetic means of treating them are still in their infancy.

Genomic research has raised all sorts of ethical issues, and a number of displays reflect how closely science and ethics are intertwined--not unlike the double helix itself, according to Rob DeSalle, the exhibition's curator as well as codirector of the Museum's Molecular Systematics Laboratory and a curator in the Division of Invertebrates. "Most people would agree that curing disease is a good use of genetics. But what about changing the color of eyes from brown to blue--what we call genetic enhancement? Harmless, perhaps? But then the next step after that is, `Well, I'd like my child to be a little smarter than normal.' Or `Gosh, I'd like her to be able to slam-dunk a basketball.' Before you know it, you're into designer babies. These are ethical questions we'll all face sooner or later."

If you carry the genes for an incurable disease, would you want that information made available to you? To insurance companies? To the government? What about cloning? And would you eat genetically modified corn? Bananas? Salmon? At three computer polling stations in the exhibition, visitors can register their opinions. They can then see how their answers tally with those of people sampled in a Harris Poll.

Genome research also focuses on the concepts of continuity and variation, another pair of intertwining themes incorporated into the displays. Seven percent of our genes are the same as those of Escherichia coli bacteria, and we share 90 percent with mice and more than 98 percent with chimpanzees. "This is continuity; the other side of the coin is variation," says DeSalle. "The difference between, say, you and me, is small but it exists: for every thousand base pairs of DNA we share, there's one change, meaning a 0.1 percent difference. There is more variation within than between racial groups. Humans are 99.9 percent alike--truly a single entity--and that is an important point of the exhibition."

Another point concerns the number of genes in the human genome. This number turns out to be only about one-fourth the initial projection: between 30,000 and 40,000, compared with an earlier estimate of more than 140,000. Fruit flies, by comparison, have between 13,000 and 14,000 genes, and roundworms have 19,000. "The lower number fortifies the whole notion of evolution and of our connectedness with all other organisms," says Michael J. Novacek, the Museum's provost of science.

Ten years ago, the Museum might have been less enthusiastic about mounting an exhibition on genomics, as its traditional mandate has been natural history--the study of organisms at a higher level of complexity than that of the gene. "We care for vast collections and sponsor a hundred expeditions a year, a thousand through a decade," Novacek says. "We wanted to protect all that. Some of us wondered why we should bring molecular biology to a museum, when that kind of work might readily be done at a university. But our mission is to understand the diversity and evolution of life and all the tips of its many branches, so we felt we needed that extra depth of knowledge for a very similar mission: to understand the map of life and the evolutionary process of life."

The Genome Writ Large

Natural History, May, 2001 by Henry S. F. Jr. Cooper

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