The Gene: An Intimate History - Siddhartha Mukherjee Page 0,92

the “bottom”; there is usually no one-to-one correspondence between an individual component of a recipe and one structure. A recipe provides instructions about process.

A cake is a developmental consequence of sugar, butter, and flour meeting each other in the right proportion, at the right temperature, and the right time. Human physiology, by analogy, is the developmental consequence of certain genes intersecting with other genes in the right sequence, in the right space. A gene is one line in a recipe that specifies an organism. The human genome is the recipe that specifies a human.

By the early 1970s, as biologists began to decipher the mechanism by which genes were deployed to generate the astounding complexities of organisms, they also confronted the inevitable question of the intentional manipulation of genes in living beings. In April 1971, the US National Institutes of Health organized a conference to determine whether the introduction of deliberate genetic changes in organisms was conceivable in the near future. Provocatively titled Prospects for Designed Genetic Change, the meeting hoped to update the public on the possibility of gene manipulations in humans, and consider the social and political implications of such technologies.

No such method to manipulate genes (even in simple organisms) was available in 1971, the panelists noted—but its development, they felt confident, was only a matter of time. “This is not science fiction,” one geneticist declared. “Science fiction is when you [. . .] can’t do anything experimentally . . . it is now conceivable that not within 100 years, not within 25 years, but perhaps within the next five to ten years, certain inborn errors . . . will be treated or cured by the administration of a certain gene that is lacking—and we have a lot of work to do in order to prepare society for this kind of change.”

If such technologies were invented, their implications would be immense: the recipe of human instruction might be rewritten. Genetic mutations are selected over millennia, one scientist observed at the meeting, but cultural mutations can be introduced and selected in just a few years. The capacity to introduce “designed genetic changes” in humans might bring genetic change to the speed of cultural change. Some human diseases might be eliminated, the histories of individuals and families changed forever; the technology would reshape our notions of heredity, identity, illness, and future. As Gordon Tomkins, the biologist from UCSF, noted: “So for the first time, large numbers of people are beginning to ask themselves: What are we doing?”

A memory: It is 1978 or ’79, and I am about eight or nine. My father has returned from a business trip. His bags are still in the car, and a glass of ice water is sweating on a tray on the dining room table. It is one of those blistering afternoons in Delhi when the ceiling fans seem to slosh heat around the room, making it feel even warmer. Two of our neighbors are waiting for him in the living room. The air seems tense with anxiety, although I cannot discern why.

My father enters the living room, and the men talk to him for a few minutes. It is, I sense, not a pleasant conversation. Their voices rise and their words sharpen, and I can make out the contours of most of the sentences, even through the concrete walls of the adjacent room, where I am supposed to be doing homework.

Jagu has borrowed money from both of them—not large sums, but enough to bring them to our house, demanding repayment. He has told one of the men that he needs the cash for medicines (he has never been prescribed any), and the other man that he needs it to buy a train ticket to Calcutta to visit his other brothers (no such trip has been planned; it would be impossible for Jagu to travel alone). “You should learn to control him,” one of the men says accusingly.

My father listens silently, patiently—but I can feel the fiery meniscus of rage rising in him, coating his throat with bile. He walks to the steel closet, where we keep the household cash, and brings it to the men, making a point of not bothering to count the notes. He can spare a few extra rupees; they should keep the change.

By the time the men leave, I know that there will be a bruising altercation at home. With the instinctual certainty of wild animals that run uphill before tsunamis, our cook has left the kitchen to summon my