
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990                   TAG: 9006260401
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CREATING LIFE RESEARCH TESTS OLD LIMITS

JACK SZOSTAK wants to create life in a laboratory. Forget all the images of mad scientists, lightning and monsters. Szostak and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital are working on a more realistic level. They are trying to make one-celled organisms that can divide and evolve.

Simply stated - too simply, perhaps - Szostak is recreating the conditions that existed in the prebiotic soup of a tidal basin 4 billion years ago. He combines fat, water, a compound called spermadine and a segment of RNA (ribonucleic acid) taken from a particular protozoan.

The fat forms membranes that act like cell walls and encapsulate bits of the other substances. More RNA is added to fuel the process. Molecules of the RNA begin to splice themselves into a more complex enzyme.

When the mixture is shaken periodically, the cells divide into smaller units, some of which fuse, forming new enzymes. If Szostak's experiment works, in time the system will run on its own. The cells will replicate themselves, and be subject to evolutionary growth and change.

Some scientists argue that even if Szostak is successful, his simple system won't really be "life." That's where the implications of his research move out of the laboratory and into the larger social arena.

What, after all, is life? How is it to be defined in a strict scientific sense? Is there a difference between that definition and one that is used in a statute or a court? When does life begin? When does it end? How should it be extended? At all levels, from one-celled organisms to human beings, how much tinkering should be done?

Unfortunately, recent advances in science and medicine - more sophisticated surgical techniques, genetic research, etc. - don't make those questions any easier to answer. Just the opposite is true. Clear dividing lines between life and death - and now life and non-life - have become blurred. Yesterday's ironclad truth is today's uncertainty.

Szostak's research isn't the only work being done in this field. At least three other groups in this country alone are working to create life in the lab. One or more of them will probably claim success soon. And then what?

What will it mean that we can create life? How may it affect the discussion of scientific and medical ethics? About the only thing that can be said for sure is that it will make an already murky understanding of life even more complicated.

by CNB