This article was taken from the September 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When scientists violate moral taboos, we expect horrific consequences. It's a trope that goes back at least to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: however well-intentioned our fictional scientists may be, their disregard for ethical boundaries will produce not a peer-reviewed paper in
Science but rather a new race of subhuman killers, a sucking wormhole in space-time, or a sea of malevolent goo.
In the real world, though, matters aren't so simple. Most scientists will assure you that ethical rules never hinder good research -- that there's always a virtuous path to testing any important hypothesis. But ask them in private, perhaps after a drink or three, and they'll confess that the dark side does have its appeal. Bend the rules and some of our deepest scientific conundrums could be elucidated or even resolved: nature versus nurture, the causes of mental illness, even the mystery of how humans evolved from monkeys. These discoveries are just sitting out there, waiting for us to find them, if only we were willing to lose our souls.
What follows are seven creepy experiments that show how contemporary science might advance if it were to toss away the moral compass that guides it. Don't try these at home -- or anywhere, for that matter. But also don't pretend you wouldn't like to learn the secrets that these experiments would reveal.
SEPARATING TWINS
The experiment:
Split up twins after birth -- and then control every aspect of their environments
The premise:
In the quest to gauge the interplay of nature and nurture, science has one obvious resource: identical twins, to people whose genes are nearly 100 percent the same. But twins almost always grow up together, essentially in the same environment. A few studies have been able to track twins separated at a young age, but it's impossible to control retroactively for all the ways that the lives of even separated twins are still related. If scientists could control the siblings from the start, they could create a rigorous study. It would be one of the least ethical studies imaginable, but it might be the only way (short of cloning humans for research, which is arguably even less ethical) that we'd ever solve some big questions about genetics and upbringing.
How it works:
Expectant mothers of twins would need to be recruited ahead of time so the environments of each sibling could differ from the moment of birth. After choosing what factors to investigate, researchers could construct test homes for the children, ensuring that every aspect of their upbringing, from diet to climate, was controlled and measured
The payoff:
Several disciplines would benefit enormously, but none more than psychology, in which the role of upbringing has long been particularly hazy. Developmental psychologists could arrive at some unprecedented insights into personality -- finally explaining, for example, why twins raised together can turn out utterly different, while those raised apart can end up very alike.
Erin Biba
BRAIN SAMPLING
The experiment:
Remove brain cells from a live subject to analyse which genes are switched on and which are off
The premise:
You might donate blood or hair for scientific research, but how about a tiny slice of your brain -- while you're still alive? Medical ethics wouldn't let you consent even if you wanted to, and for good reason; it's an invasive surgery with serious risks. But it could help to answer a huge question: how does nurture affect nature, and vice versa? Although scientists recognise in principle that our environment can alter our DNA, they have few documented examples of how these so-called epigenetic changes happen and with what consequences. Animal studies suggest the consequences could be profound. A 2004 study of lab rats at McGill University, Montreal, found that certain maternal behaviours can silence a gene in the hippocampi of their pups, leaving them less able to handle stress hormones. In 2009, a McGillled team saw a hint of a similar effect in humans. In the brains of dead people who had been abused as children and then committed suicide, the analogous gene was inhibited. But what about in living brains? When does the shift happen? With brain sampling, we might understand the real neurologic toll of child abuse, and potentially far more than that.
How it works:
Researchers would obtain brain cells just as a surgeon does when conducting a biopsy. After lightly sedating the patient, they would attach a head ring with four pins, using local anaesthetic to numb the skin. A surgeon would make an incision a few millimetres wide in the scalp, drill a small hole through the skull and insert a biopsy needle to grab a tiny bit of tissue. A thin slice would be sufficient, since you need only a few micrograms of DNA. Assuming no infection or surgical error, damage to the brain would be minimal.
The payoff:
Such an experiment could answer some deep questions about how we learn. Does reading turn on genes in the prefrontal cortex, the site of higher-order cognition? Does spending lots of time at the cricket crease alter the epigenetic status of genes in the motor cortex?
Does watching reality television alter genes in whatever brain you have left?
By correlating experiences with the DNA in our heads, we could better understand how the lives we lead wind up tinkering with the genes we inherited.
Sharon Begley
EMBRYO MAPPING
The experiment:
Insert a tracking agent into a human embryo to monitor its development
The premise:
These days, expectant mothers undergo elaborate tests to make sure the foetus they are carrying is normal. So, would any of them allow their offspring to be exploited as a science project? Not likely. But without that sort of radical experimentation, we may never fully understand the last great mystery of human development: how a tiny clump of cells becomes a fully formed human being.
Today, researchers have the tools to answer that question in principle, thanks to new technology that allows for the tracking of cells' genetic activity over time. If ethics weren't an issue, all they would need was a subject willing to let them use her baby as a guinea pig.
How it works:
To trace the activity of different genes within an embryonic cell, researchers could use a synthetic virus to insert a visible "reporter" gene (fluorescent protein, for example). As that cell divided and differentiated, researchers could see how genes turned on and off during development. This would show which developmental switches turn embryonic stem cells into specialised cells for organs such as the heart and brain.
The payoff:
A fully mapped embryo would give us, for the first time, a front-row seat for the making of a human being. That information could help us direct the evolution of stem cells to repair cellular damage and treat disease -- say, by inserting a healthy pool of neurons into the brain of a patient with Parkinson's disease. Comparing the details of human embryonic development to that of other species -- similar mapping has already been done on mice, for example -- might also reveal the differences in genetic expression that contribute to complex human attributes such as language. But the risks of human embryo mapping are too great even to consider performing it. Not only would the mapping process risk terminating the pregnancy, the viral vector used to insert the reporter gene might disrupt the embryo's DNA and lead, ironically, to developmental defects.
Jennifer Kahn
OPTOGENICS
The experiment:
Use of beams of light to control the activity of brain cells in conscious human beings
The premise:
May I cut open your skull and implant some electronic gizmos in there? Before you say no, listen to what science might gain. The brain is a vast knot of electrical connections, and working out the purpose of any given circuit is a huge challenge. Much of what we do know comes from studying brain injuries, which let us crudely infer the function of various areas based on the apparent effects of the wounds. Genetic approaches are more precise, but chemically disabling genes takes time to influence the activity of cells, making it hard to trace the impact on mental processes. Mapping the brain properly requires a tool that is both precise and fast.
How it works:
Optogenetics is an experimental method being used with great success in mice. Researchers have engineered a benign virus that, when injected into the brain, makes the ion channels -- the switches that turn cells on and off -- responsive to light. By flashing focused beams into brain tissue (usually with hair-width fibreoptic strands), researchers can selectively increase or decrease the firing rate of these cells and watch how subjects are affected. Unlike conventional genetic approaches, optogenetic flashes alter neural firing within milliseconds. And by aiming at specific circuits in the brain, it's possible to test theories with great precision.
The payoff:
One human brain, when decked out for optogenetic research, would yield unparalleled insight into the workings of the mind. Just imagine if we could silence a few cells in the right prefrontal cortex and make self-awareness disappear. Or if shining a light in the visual cortex prevented us from recognising the face of a loved one. Ideally, the effects would only be temporary: once the light was turned off, those deficits would disappear. Such experiments would give us our first detailed understanding of causality in the cortex, revealing how 100 billion neurons work together to endow us with all the impressive talents we take for granted.
Jonah Lehrer
WOMB SWAPPING
The experiment:
Switch the embryos of obese women with those of thin women
The premise:
In vitro fertilisation ( IVF) is an expensive and risky procedure as it is. So it's hard to imagine that any mother in such a programme would ever be willing to swap embryos, entrusting her progeny to another womb while gestating someone else's child herself. But such an act of scientific selflessness could spawn some truly significant breakthroughs. Why? For all that we don't understand about epigenetics -- the way that our genes are altered by our environment -- the trickiest problem is this: many of the most important epigenetic influences happen while we're in the womb.
A classic example is obesity. Studies have shown that obese women tend to have overweight children, even before dietary factors kick in. Trouble is, nobody knows how much of that is a product of genes -- innate, inherited variations -- or epigenetics.
How it works:
The experiment: would be the same as regular IVF, except the fertilised egg of an obese mother would be transferred to the womb of a skinny mother, and vice versa.
The payoff:
We would be far more certain whether the roots of obesity were primarily genetic or epigenetic -- and similar studies could probe other traits. For example, a Canadian team is attempting to isolate the effects of in utero exposure to toxins on a child's genes. With embryo swaps at scientists' disposal, that task wouldn't require statistical guesswork. The answer would be clear as day -- even if the ethics were profoundly murky.
Jennifer Kahn
TOXIC HEROES
The experiment:
Test each new chemical on a wide range of human volunteers before it comes on the market
The premise:
Under current regulations, we are all de facto test subjects for a whole range of potential toxins. So why don't scientists recruit volunteers to try out chemicals for them? Even with informed consent, medical ethicists would recoil at the idea. But it would almost certainly save lives over time.
To comply with legislation, manufacturers turn to testing labs, which expose animals, usually rodents, to high levels of the chemical in question. But just because a mouse survives a test doesn't mean that a human would. The only studies we can perform on people are observational: tracking the incidence of adverse effects in those we know to have been exposed. But these studies are fraught with problems. When researchers can find high levels of exposure -- for example, workers in factories that make or use the chemical -- the number of subjects is often too small to yield reliable results. And with broader-based studies, it becomes extremely difficult to tease out one chemical's effect, since we're all exposed to so many toxins every day.
How it works:
Perform all the standard safety tests required by the EU's Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances legislation (REACH) on humans instead of animals. To do so, we'd need to recruit volunteers of varying races and health levels - ideally hundreds for each substance.
The payoff:
Toxicology is currently a guessing game. Just think of the controversy over bisphenol A, about which the studies of effects in humans are maddeningly inconclusive. Testing chemicals extensively on groups of people would provide a much more accurate picture of how a given chemical affected us -- data that would inform regulators and be shared with the public to help people make their own decisions. An ancillary victory: no more conflicting news reports about what is and isn't good for you.
Erin Biba
APE MAN
The experiment:
Cross-breed a human with a chimpanzee
The premise:
Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould called it "the most potentially interesting and ethically unacceptable experiment I can imagine". The idea?
Mating a human with a chimp. Gould's interest sprang from his work with snails; closely related species produce very different shells.
He attributed this to a few master genes, which turn on and off the genes responsible for shell architecture, and wondered if the big visible differences between humans and apes were also down to developmental timing. Adult humans have traits, such as larger skulls and wide-set eyes, that resemble baby chimps', a phenomenon known as neoteny -- the retention of juvenile traits in adults.
Gould theorised that a tendency to neoteny might have helped give rise to human beings. By watching the development of a half-human half-chimp, researchers could explore this theory in a firsthand, and truly creepy, way.
How it works:
It would probably be frighteningly easy. The same techniques used for IVF would likely yield a viable hybrid human-chimp embryo. (Researchers have already spanned a comparable genetic gap in breeding a rhesus macaque with a baboon.) Chimps have 24 pairs of chromosomes, and humans 23, but this is not an absolute barrier.
The offspring would likely have an odd number of chromosomes, though, which might make them unable to reproduce themselves. As for the gestation and birth, it could be done the natural way. On average, chimpanzees are born slightly smaller than humans -- around 1.8kg -- and so comparative anatomy would argue for growing the embryo in a human uterus.
The payoff:
Gould's idea about neoteny remains controversial. "It got a lot of scrutiny and has been disproved in many ways," says Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. But Alexander Harcourt, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, regards neoteny as "still a viable concept". This forbidden experiment would help to resolve that debate and, in a broader sense, illuminate how two species with such similar genomes could be so different.
Jerry Adler
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
