Perfect Bodies Summer 1999

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A scientist whose collaborative research seeks to expand human life expectancy to more than one thousand years asked what ministers like me would do once folks could live forever on earth.

"I don't know," I replied, "but fortunately we'll have plenty of time to figure that out."

Absurd question? Absurd answer? On the contrary, both were very real and typical of the conversations during my day at the MIT-Harvard Conference on Genetic Technology and Society. When I was invited to serve last March as the conference's "religious voice," I was a bit intimidated at the thought of joining Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science winners, accomplished faculty and clinicians, pharmaceutical executives, and congressmen. I raced through some books and articles on the latest advances in gene research, computer science, molecular biology, informatics, government policy, bioethics, economics, medicine, and law—just enough to fool me into thinking that I had some clue.

I read that organisms are being engineered to clean up oil spills, to neutralize dangerous pollutants, to absorb radioactivity, and to transform waste products into ethanol for fuel. I read about the major commercial role envisioned for genetically engineered plants and animals to act as living factories for the production of organic plastics, pharmaceuticals, and organs for transplantation into humans. I read how human skin is being manufactured for use on burn victims and how other body organs are being grown from stem cells using polymer frames. The potential for good is evident.

However, there is also potential for harm. In reprogramming the genetic codes of life, there is the possibility of fatally interrupting millions of years of biological development. The ...

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