Researchers address the meaning of the genomic revolution

Genetics genomics have disturbed science's dreams of explaining human nature and individuality as merely a function of the activity of genes, modulated by environmental factors, according to University of Queensland Federation Fellow Professor Paul Griffiths.

Griffiths is director of the Biohumanities Project, Australia's first research centre for a new branch of the traditional discipline of the history and philosophy of science.

He is an organizer of Australia's first biohumanities conference, The Conceptual Impact of the Genomic Revolution, which will bring together some of the leading thinkers in the field - philosophers, historians and social scientists - at the University of Queensland this week.

Griffiths said the genomics revolution is rewriting science's understanding of what gives rise to human nature and individuality.

"The genome is far more than a collection of genes, but what new picture of the genome will replace the idea that individual genes are the 'agents of life'?," he asked.

"How will biological influences on human behaviour be studied in the 'post-genomic era'?"

He said the new biohumanities field seeks to act as a mediator between the community and bioscientists in fields as diverse genomics, evolutionary biology and ecology.

These fields are generating claims that society needs to analyse and understand - "But this means more than reflecting on the moral and technological implications of certain biological facts," he said.

Among the list of leading researchers from the US and UK is Professor John Dupre, director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society in the UK, author of a recent book, Human Nature and the Limits of Science.

Griffiths said Dupre's view is that genomics no longer casts genes as the blueprint that determines traits of humans, animals or plants. Instead, genes are now seen as part of a larger, interactive network that encompasses the genome, the cell, the organism, and the natural and social environment.

Another guest speaker will be behavioural genticist Professor Ken Schaffner, of George Washington University, author of What's Genetic and What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Schaffner was among experts invited by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to contribute to Agenda 2033, an attempt to predict developments in science and technology, society and ethics, 30 years hence.

"He will be talking about what we've learned from science, and what are the prospects for understanding ourselves in genetic terms.

"Basically, he thinks we have learned a great deal. He believes we have run up against the limits of classical statistical behavioural genetics, and further progress is going to come out of understanding biochemical pathways in the brain.

"He believes it is overwhelmingly likely we will find many genes that simultaneously affect many behaviours, in the context of a large number of environmental variables.

"He is also confident that we are going to make significant progress in understanding and treating pschiatric disorders, but we will need at least 10 years' more research to achieve the broad and consistent identification of genes with small effects, to clarify the phenotypes of psychiatric disorders.

"A biohumanities researcher called Phillip Kitcher, a Fellow of the Library of Congress said several years ago be thought that, in his lifetime, we had developed just enough technology to discriminate against the mentally ill, but not enough to cure them."

Griffiths said he is trying to promote the idea that society has entered a post-genomics phase. Since the 1970s, masses of new genomic data, and bioinformatics, had undermined the central role of genes.

The new synthesis saw genes as agents, embedded within a genome that contains control structures extending out into the environment.

But while it is possible to identify a gene as a linear structure coded in DNA, Griffiths said the correspondence between that structure and the gene's product - or products - is far from straightforward. He likened the connection to that between Picasso's abstract representation of a woman, and the original model.

"That abstract, traditional gene is important to science, and it's not going to go away. But one reason why the community is frightened by genetics is that if a simple, well-defined physical entity like a gene could do all the things that theory says, it would be pretty magical."