Message from the Director
Tempered With Realism
Huntington F. Willard, PhD
Humility is a term not often associated with most genome scientists — or scientists of any type for that matter. This is somewhat ironic, since anyone who's put in a 16-hour day trying to get an experiment to work or a piece of software to run probably knows something about being humbled. Yet science rarely rewards the timid, and so emerges an unmistaken swagger — in grant applications, published manuscripts, press releases, testimony before Congress and public lectures. We just knowhow this experiment should turn out, and the cell, tissue, organism, molecule or genome will simply have to capitulate.
"I am convinced that what we do here will have a profound impact on people's lives, including those of our own children, both here and around the globe."But there are disturbing signs that our most important audience is tiring of the act. In the eyes of the public, scientists now rank right up there (down there?) with lawyers and certain Fortune 500 executives. Newspapers are full of stories of conflicts of interest that cloud scientific judgment in return for cash or glory, of manipulated or simply falsified data, and of overstated claims.
Genome scientists — no matter how well meaning — have made some extraordinary and well-publicized claims in recent years. We regularly promise that our latest breakthroughs will allow us to predict who will get sick, heal those who do, and even prevent illness among the well. Those are laudable goals, of course, and I can’t imagine anyone taking issue with them. Therein lies part of the problem: the public believes these claims and is losing patience. The state of our art — as with much of medicine today or any day — is such that, despite an increasing success rate, we still fall short of these goals every day. Certainly this is cause for real humility.
It is hardly the only cause. Our language tends to extend beyond promises to heal. Genomics is often portrayed in grandiose and evangelical terms — we write and speak of "reading the book of life," "deciphering the Rosetta Stone," and, as President Clinton put it so famously in 2000, "[understanding] the language in which God created life." It is this sort of rhetoric that Amy Laura Hall, as described in this issue of GenomeLIFE, recognizes as a trap. The reality is that, as of now, we have uncovered the meaning of just a fraction of our own Rosetta Stone. And if through genomics we are speaking God's language, then at this point we are no more than tourists wandering around a foreign country with a skinny phrasebook, struggling to ask a stranger where we might find la bibliothéque.
I understand that in order to get the public to buy into the Human Genome Project and all of its ancillary activities, we needed a winning sales pitch. But at some point — and now would be a good time — it's incumbent upon us to tone the rhetoric down. Amy Laura, in her forthcoming book, shows again and again the consequences of over-promising and underdelivering, from eugenics to atomic energy. In each case, those with a vested interest in the successful adoption of a new technology developed their own marketing scheme and went to extraordinary lengths to sell it, which only made the ensuing failures and disappointments that much more painful.
Do I expect genomics to follow the same trajectory as, say, the atom, which went from Eighth Wonder of the World to dangerous pariah to afterthought? Some might question myobjectivity, but in my heart of hearts I honestly don't. Whether I'm walking through the labs in CIEMAS or thumbing through the latest publications produced by Duke's still-growing assemblage of genome scientists and scholars, I see progress. I am convinced that what we do here will have a profound impact on people's lives, including those of our own children, both here and around the globe.
But thanks to the work of Amy Laura and others, I've come to realize that our words must be tempered with realism. Thirty-five years ago President Nixon declared war on cancer. This past February we learned that cancer death rates are declining for the first time ever. Could anyone in 1971 have imagined that the potential turning point in this "war" would not come for more than three decades?
There are no shortcuts — just ask fallen stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. Genome revolutionaries would do well to remember that our timeline is a macro one. Thus, even if some technological breakthrough produced a $1000 genome tomorrow (and that's a huge and unlikely 'if' — see page 5 to learn why), we would still need decades before we could assimilate everyone's genomic information and find ways to use it that are simultaneously effective, efficient and just. We should continue to try, of course, but we should speak in realistic terms. Some revolutions seem more evolutionary than revolutionary: they take decades, even centuries.
The Genome Revolution is happening. Without question, to maximize our role in it will require ambition, maybe even Duke-sized "outrageous ambition". We should teach the public more about the process and progress of science and not bury the realities beneath mountains of self-serving pronouncements. We owe them — and ourselves — our best efforts, mixed in with a healthy dose of humility and patience.
Huntington F. Willard
Director