Another Asilomar? Preliminary Plans Under Way

When Herbert Boyer of the University of California and Stanley Cohen of Stanford University found a way to recombine DNA molecules in test tubes using restriction enzymes,1 they crossed the ultimate milestone in genetic engineering in the early 1970s. They also set the stage for a firestorm of controversy. Scientists and nonscientists feared that the new technology could be used to create hazardous biological materials. Could, for example, pathogenic genes cloned into E.coli plasmids transform the frequently manipulated bacteria into a dangerous vector with the ability to transmit cancer? Such concerns prompted a voluntary and widely accepted moratorium on recombinant DNA research.2 And that moratorium spurred a now-famous February 1975 National Academy of Sciences meeting at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Calif. Called the Conference on Recombinant DNA, or, more commonly, the Asilomar Conference, the event has been written about and analyzed extensively.3,4 Scientists, journalists, lawyers, and government officials discussed methods of biological containment and mechanisms of self-regulation for research involving recombinant DNA. Based largely on the recommendations of conference participants, the National Institutes of Health adopted strict guidelines regulating recombinant DNA research soon after the meeting. As it turns out, the worst fears expressed at the conference were overstated, and the technology has since proven critical for unraveling the mysteries of biotechnology, developmental biology, and fundamental life processes. Some participants even have suggested that the meeting slowed the pace of research. It certainly had far-reaching implications for the whole of biological research. "I think the existence of the Asilomar process ... showed good faith on the part of scientists that they didn't want to rush into things in a heedless way," says meeting participant Alexander Capron, a professor of law and medicine and codirector of the Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics at the University of Southern California Law Center. Now, to mark the 25th anniversary of the event, Capron is attempting to coordinate a second Asilomar conference along with several of the original conference's organizers, including Maxine Singer, the president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C.; Paul Berg, director of Stanford University's Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine; and David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology. According to Capron, the conference, slated for February 2000, would be an invitational gathering meant to bring together the original Asilomar participants, as well as historians and other selected guests. Papers would be presented, and participants would discuss how the Asilomar model might be applicable to new issues. Berg, who was only recently contacted by Capron, plans to participate. The meeting agenda and purpose, as he understands it, are closely in line with the analysis that he and Singer laid out in a 1995 paper that reflected on the original conference.5 "The idea would not be to have a ... celebration," explains Capron. "This is not a dinner party to raise a toast to Asilomar. This would be a chance to look back, but also to look forward in an analytical way." The meeting would, for instance, look back by exploring how Asilomar influenced the progress of gene therapy, and look forward by investigating how the Asilomar paradigm might be applied to today's major issues, such as stem cell research. According to Capron, speakers for the conference should be confirmed in the next few months. (See also, Commentary: "Asilomar2: An Idea Whose Time Has Come," by George N. Davatelis) S.N. Cohen et al., "Construction of biologically functional bacterial plasmids in-vitro," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 70:3240-4, 1973. P. Berg et al., "Potential biohazards of recombinant DNA molecules," Science, 185:303, 1974. S. Krimsky, Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the Recombinant DNA Controversy, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1982. M. Rogers, Biohazard, New York, Knopf, 1977. P. Berg, M. Singer, "The recombinant DNA controversy: Twenty years later," PNAS, 92:9011-3, 1995.

Another Asilomar? Preliminary Plans Under Way

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