By AMY ADAMS

Before making critical decisions, a good first step is to understand the pros and cons. That’s the idea behind a lecture series to help non-scientists understand the implications of current genetics research.

“You can’t think about things until you understand them,” said Lucy Shapiro, PhD, professor of developmental biology, in her introduction to the first lecture in the series, held Jan. 26 in Fairchild Auditorium.

In the name of understanding advances in genetics, Paul Berg, PhD, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor of Cancer Research, emeritus, opened the series with a quick genetics 101 course leading up to his own Nobel prize-winning discovery of genetic engineering.

“This was a transforming step in biology,” Berg said. Despite the medical promise of genetic engineering, a public outcry drummed up fears of Frankenstein-like bacteria spreading heretofore unknown genes and diseases.

“The telephone was ringing off the hook with people telling us how stupid it would be to put this DNA into cells,” Berg recalled.

Despite widespread fear about the technology and legislation drafted to ban the work, Berg explained that genetic engineering research took off. He said the change came about as genetic engineering proved its importance when scientists produced proteins in bacteria to treat otherwise incurable diseases.

Genetic engineering now produces insulin to treat diabetes as well as proteins to treat hemophilia and anemia and it was also critical to how scientists eventually sequenced the human genome.

Berg drew a parallel between the fight over genetic engineering and today’s debates over the implications of the human genome project. The international project revealed the string of A’s, T’s, G’s and C’s that make up a human being. But between any two people this sequence differs at one out of every 1,000 genetic letters.

“The challenge is to learn the meaning of those differences,” Berg said. Some are irrelevant while others produce visible differences in height or hair color and still others may result in disease. Knowing what these subtle differences mean holds the promise of better disease prevention or even cures for genetic disease.

As with genetic engineering, Berg said some people see a dark side to genetics research, which could lead to discrimination in humans or the spread of introduced genes in genetically modified plants and to stem cell research, which also has fierce moral opponents. He said what’s needed for fears to subside is a medical discovery such as the drugs produced by genetic engineering.

In his introduction to Berg’s talk, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, agreed that an important advance would end debate over the usefulness of stem cell and genetic research.

“Probably the outside force will be a discovery that makes a big difference in a major disease and then the research will become inevitable,” he said.

Irving Weissman, MD, the Karel andAvice Beekhuis Professor of Cancer Biology, will expand on the promise of stem cell research in the next talk on Feb. 20 at 4 p.m. in Fairchild Auditorium.