“The genome was considered to be the unchanging blueprint of human beings, determined at the beginning of our lives. Science must now abandon this idea. In reality, our genetic makeup is constantly changing.
Two years ago, 25 geneticists gathered at the University of California, Berkeley, to answer a seemingly simple question: What is a gene? However, the attempt to precisely define the basic concept of their field proved to be extremely difficult. The meeting of experts almost ended in disaster, recalls Karen Eilbeck, professor of human genetics at Berkeley and host of the roundtable: “We had hours of meetings. Everyone was yelling at each other.”
The dispute in Berkeley had little to do with researcher vanity. It was the first sign that the life sciences—still unnoticed by the public—were on the verge of a turning point. What researchers are uncovering in the chromosome strands of humans and animals is breaking with previous patterns of thinking in genetics. Much like at the beginning of the 20th century, when Einstein and his colleagues formed a new physical worldview, the age of relativistic genetics may now be dawning.
Medical research in particular is facing new challenges. Initial outlines are becoming apparent: the body and soul, their health, illness, development, and aging are subject to a genetic interplay whose complexity exceeds all previous ideas. Geneticists must abandon their image of a stable genome in which changes are pathological exceptions. Everyone’s genetic material is constantly undergoing change. The result: every organism, every human being, even every cell in the body is a genetic universe unto itself.”
Ulrich Bahnsen
