71 
Letter by Chargaff, Erwin, Science Vol. 192, pp. 939-940, 4 June 1976. 
Copyright© 1976 by the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science. 
Letters 
On the Dangers of Genetic Meddling 
A bizarre problem is posed by recent 
attempts to make so-called genetic engi- 
neering palatable to the public. Presum- 
ably because they were asked to estab- 
lish “guidelines.'’ the National Institutes 
of Health have permitted themselves to 
be dragged into a controversy with 
which they should not have had anything 
to do. Perhaps such a request should 
have been addressed to the Department 
of Justice. But I doubt that they would 
have wanted to become involved with 
second-degree molecular biology. 
Although I do not think that a terrorist 
organization ever asked the Federal Bu- 
reau of Investigation to establish guide- 
lines on the proper conduct of bombing 
experiments. 1 do not doubt what the 
answer would have been; namely, that 
they ought to refrain from doing anything 
unlawful. This also applies to the case 
under discussion: no smokescreen, nei- 
ther P3 nor P4 containment facilities, can 
absolve an experimenter from having in- 
jured a fellow being. 1 set my hope in the 
cleaning women and the animal attend- 
ants employed in laboratories playing 
games with “recombinant DNA"; in the 
law profession, which ought to recognize 
a golden opportunity for biological mal- 
practice suits; and in the juries that dis- 
like all forms of doctors. 
In pursuing my quixotic undertaking — 
fighting windmills w ith an M.D. degree — 
I shall start with the cardinal folly, name- 
ly. the choice of Escherichia coli as the 
host. Permit me to quote from a respected 
textbook of microbiology (/): "E. coli 
is referred to as the ‘colon bacillus' be- 
cause it is the predominant facultative 
species in the large bowel." In fact, 
we harbor several hundred different 
varieties of this useful microorganism. 
It is responsible for few infections but 
probably for more scientific papers than 
any other living organism. If our time 
feels called upon to create new forms 
of living cells— forms that the world 
has presumably not seen since its on- 
set — why choose a microbe that has 
cohabited, more or less happily, with us 
for a very long time indeed? The answer 
is that we know so much more about 
E. coli than about anything else, includ- 
ing ourselves. But is this a valid answer? 
Take your time, study diligently, and 
you will eventually learn a great deal 
about organisms that cannot live in men 
or animals. There is no hurry, there is no 
hurry whatever. 
Here 1 shall be interrupted by many 
colleagues w ho assure me that they can- 
not wait any longer, that they are in a 
tremendous hurry to help suffering hu- 
manity. Without doubting the purity of 
their motives. I must say that nobody 
has, to my knowledge, set out clearly 
how he plans to go about curing every- 
thing from alkaptonuria to Zenker's de- 
generation. let alone replacing or repair- 
ing our genes. But screams and empty 
promises fill the air. “Don’t you want 
cheap insulin? Would you not like to 
have cereals get their nitrogen from the 
air? And how about green man photo- 
synthesizing his nourishment: 10 min- 
utes in the sun for breakfast, 30 minutes 
for lunch, and I hour for dinner?” Well, 
maybe Yes, maybe No. 
If Dr. Frankenstein must go on pro- 
ducing his little biological monsters — and 
I deny the urgency and even the com- 
pulsion — why pick E. coli as the womb? 
This is a field w'here every experiment 
is a “shotgun experiment.” not only 
those so designated; and who knows 
what is really being implanted into the 
DNA of the plasmids which the bacillus 
