Do you agree that the Berg Letter research moratorium and As

Do you agree that the Berg Letter, research moratorium, and Asilomar Conference were necessary before further recombinant DNA research was conducted? Why or why not?

Solution

Paul Berg, an American biochemist and professor emeritus at Stanford University witnessed firsthand the history of recombinant DNA research and regulation, having been in the forefront of both movements since he was a young man. He gained early recognition and influence when he delineated the key steps in which DNA produces proteins.

In the mid-1970s, the National Academy of Sciences asked Berg to explore the safety of recombinant DNA technology. He responded with the historic \"Berg letter,\" calling for a moratorium on recombinant DNA research until safety issues could be addressed. He was one of the key organizers of the international forum on recombinant DNA technology, the Asilomar Conference. The ensuing dialogue resulted in the National Institutes of Health guidelines published a year later, a milestone of responsible self-regulation in science.

The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA was an influential conference organized by Paul Berg to discuss the potential biohazards and regulation of biotechnology, held in February 1975 at a conference center at Asilomar State Beach.A group of about 140 professionals (primarily biologists, but also including lawyers and physicians) participated in the conference to draw up voluntary guidelines to ensure the safety of recombinant DNA technology. The conference also placed scientific research more into the public domain, and can be seen as applying a version of the precautionary principle.

The effects of these guidelines are still being felt through the biotechnology industry and the participation of the general public in scientific discourse. Due to potential safety hazards, scientists worldwide had halted experiments using recombinant DNA technology, which entailed combining DNAs from different organisms. After the establishment of the guidelines during the conference, scientists continued with their research, which increased fundamental knowledge about biology and the public’s interest in biomedical research.

During the conference, the principles guiding the recommendations for how to conduct experiments using this technology safely were established. The first principle for dealing with potential risks was that containment should be made an essential consideration in the experimental design. A second principle was that the effectiveness of the containment should match the estimated risk as closely as possible.

The conference also suggested the use of biological barriers to limit the spread of recombinant DNA. Such biological barriers included fastidious bacterial hosts that were unable to survive in natural environments. Other barriers were nontransmissible and equally fastidious vectors (plasmids, bacteriophages, or other viruses) that were able to grow in only specified hosts.

In addition to biological barriers, the conference advocated the use of additional safety factors. One such safety factor was physical containment, exemplified by the use of hoods or where applicable, limited access or negative pressure laboratories. Another factor was the strict adherence to good microbiological practices, which would limit the escape of organisms from the experimental situation. Additionally, the education and training of all personnel involved in the experiments would be essential to effective containment measures.

Thus it can be concluded that the Berg Letter and the Asilomar Conference were very much necessary as they became the starting point for focusing a social and ethical dialogue on recombinant DNA research by calling for self-imposed restrictions and guidelines about such research.