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70 Def. Counsel. J. 22 (2003)
The Brave New World Is Here: Privacy Issues and the Human Genome Project

handle is hein.journals/defcon70 and id is 24 raw text is: The Privacy Project The Brave New World Is Here: Privacy Issues and the Human Genome Project Governments and courts must step in to provide protections and regulations for the use of individuals' genetic testing results By Robert A. Curley Jr. and Lisa M. Caperna S CIENTIFIC discoveries and advances in biological understanding during the 20th century paved the path for the Human Genome Project. We used to think our fate was in our stars. Now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes, said James Watson, who co-discovered the double-helix struc- ture of DNA with Francis Crick in 1953.' As for Crick's thoughts, he stated, You, your joys and your sorrows, your memo- ries and your ambitions, your sense of per- sonal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the genetically determined be- havior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.'2 DNA was discovered in the mid 1800s. In 1868, a Swiss biologist, Friedrich Miescher, identified DNA in the nuclei of pus cells obtained from discarded surgical bandages. But it was during the 20th cen- tury that there were great advances in bio- logical understanding of DNA. In 1943, American Oswald Avery proved that DNA carries genetic informa- tion. He even suggested that DNA might actually be the gene. Most people at that time thought the gene would be protein, not nuclei acid, but by the late 1940s, DNA generally was accepted as the genetic mol- ecule. In 1952, Alfred Hershey and Martha 1. James Watson, quoted in Leon Jaroff, The Great Hunt, TIME, March 20, 1989, at 62, 67. 2. FRANCIS CRICK, THE ASTONISHING HYPOTH- ESIS: THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SOUL 3 (1994). IADC member Robert A. Curley Jr. is president of Curley & Curley, P.C., of Boston, where he concentrates his prac- tice in the defense of product liability and catastrophic personal injuries. He is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B. 1971) and Cornell University Law School (J.D. 1976). Lisa M. Caperna is an associate at Curley & Curley. She was educated at Boston College (B.A. 1997, J.D. 2000). Chase performed the definitive experiment that showed that DNA was, in fact, the ge- netic material. Once more was known about DNA, the next step was to figure out the molecule's structure. The race was on. At Cambridge University, there were Watson and Crick. At the same time, at King's College in London, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin also were studying DNA. In 1953, building from the King's team's research, Watson and Crick presented a model of the structure of DNA. In 1962, Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the Noble Prize for physiology and medicine. Franklin had died by 1962, and the Nobel Prize rules do not allow an award to be made posthu- mously, and interestingly nor do they allow more than three scientists to share the award. Franklin actually was the one who dis- covered and first stated that the sugar- phosphate backbone of DNA lies on the outside of the molecule. She arrived at this discovery after examining the DNA mol- ecule under an x-ray beam, a technique called x-ray crystallography. It would be

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