What are the implications of being able to eliminate inherited genetic diseases? Biochemist and research scientist , Daniel Fernández analyses these issues.
Daniel Fernández. / Protestante Digital.
Genetics has seen major advances in recent years, especially in the field of gene editing.
What are the implications of being able to eliminate inherited genetic diseases? What role do or should Christians play in the gene editing debate?
Spanish news website Protestante Digital talked with Daniel Fernández, a Christian biochemist and research scientist about these issues.
According to Fernández, “the main advance in genetic editing in recent years has been the development of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology”.
“CRISPR allows to access the DNA of any cell and modify it to correct any mutations that might cause disease or anything else”.
It is already being used in laboratories on a regular basis and “it works”, says the researcher. They are also starting to test it in clinical trials in some patients for some very specific diseases.
Fernández pointed out that “this technology is mainly being used to modify just specific cells. If you have, for example, an anaemia affecting red blood cells, modifying those cells does not affect the whole person, but only specific cells, which is called somatic genetic editing”.
But there are still limits to DNA modification, such as germline gene editing, which is not allowed, although there was already a case in China of a doctor who made genetic modifications to embryos.
“The line is always difficult to draw between what is treatment or prevention, and what is improvement, especially when it has to to with unborn people”, said Fernández.
One of the controversies that arose due to the pandemic was the use of gene editing for the development of vaccines, but Fernández underlined that “the main vaccines that have been used since the beginning of the pandemic are based on ARN technology”.
He explained that “while the main function of DNA is to give instructions to cells on how to produce proteins, the coronavirus vaccines actually deliver the ARN to our cells, so that they directly produce the virus proteins and thereby train our immune system, which has already seen part of the virus, to know how to act. It is not introducing genetic modifications nor altering our DNA”.
“It may seem that a vaccine has suddenly come out of nowhere, but they have much research behind it, all the clinical trials have been done and everything has been tested. But I understand that the circumstances were not the most appropriate, or maybe sometimes it is not well explained by scientists or the governments”, added Fernández.
Amid these developments, what do Christians have to offer? Can the value of the human dignity help to address the debate on genetic modification?
For Fernández, “sometimes when we talk about genetics or genetic modifications we Christians can fall into the trap of genetic determinism and think that what makes us people is our DNA”.
“This is not true on a scientific level either, but as Christians it does not make sense to think that DNA determines who we are. I believe that our dignity does not lie in having a particular DNA or in our DNA being 100% natural and pure and unmodified - it is something deeper”, he said.
The Christian research scientist believes that as Christians it is important and a good time to reflect, develop and give an opinion on this matter, because “scientists in general are at a point in this issue that they are aware that they need to listen to society”.
“We need to get involved in the issue, not only Christian scientists but all of us, lawyers, doctors, patients, we all have a lot to say”, he added.
Fernández stressed the importance to be informed “in order to give sound and useful opinions” and encouraged Christians “to dare to go into the depth of the debate, not to stay in simplistic positions but to understand what are the questions that people are asking and how can we as Christians answer them”.
You can watch the full interview (in Spanish) here:
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