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83 A.B.A. J. 44 (1997)
Body Science

handle is hein.journals/abaj83 and id is 369 raw text is: BY LORI ANDREWS redicting the future always has been a human temptation. In one very important sense, we now are close to being blessed-or cursed-with getting our wish. At an increasingly rapid pace, biological scientists are using ge- netics research to develop ways for us to learn more about our- selves-more, in fact, than we Lori Andrews is a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and a senior research fellow at the Ameri- can Bar Foundation. She is the re- cipient of a grant from the National Center for Human Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health to develop a policy framework for genetic technologies, might ever want to know. We used to think our fate is in our stars, observes James D. Wat- son, who helped unlock the secrets of DNA in the early 1950s and now directs the Laboratory of Quantita- tive Biology, a major genetics re- search center at Cold Spring Har- bor on Long Island in New York. Now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes. Strung together in the almost mystical double helix form of DNA, genes are the basic unit of heredity. They are contained in chromosomes carried by every cell in our bodies. Each cell contains DNA carrying the entire human genome, or all the genetic information necessary to build a person. Because each human's genes are unique, they are a personal map for that person's biological past and future-the traits inherit- ed from parents and the ones to be passed on to children. Unfortunately, not all the ge- netic news is good. As scientists learn how to read genes, they can predict a growing list of potentially harmful diseases and traits. The bad news contained in ge- netic information holds deeply per- sonal implications for each individ- ual, but it also is the reason why third parties, such as insurers, em- ployers, schools, the military and the courts, increasingly want to be in on the secret. The debate over who should have access to genetic information about individuals is likely to inten- sify in the near future as the pace of discovery picks up in the genetics 44 ABA JOURNAL / APRIL 1997 TONY STONE IMAGES/MARK JOSEPH

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