- Person
- Stanley Cohen
- Lived
- b. 1935
- Field
- Genetics
- From
- American
The story
The power of the gene-splicing technique Stanley Cohen helped invent alarmed scientists as well as excited them. When Cohen showed in 1973 that genes from one species could be cloned in another, the result raised fears about biological hazards. Could bacteria carrying new genes escape the laboratory and cause harm? Similar worries had led Paul Berg at Stanford to halt an experiment that would have put DNA from a cancer-causing monkey virus into E. coli.
In 1974 Cohen was among the signatories of a letter, organised by Berg and published in leading scientific journals, which asked researchers to pause certain kinds of recombinant DNA experiments voluntarily until their risks could be properly assessed. It was a rare case of scientists placing limits on their own work before any government required it.
In February 1975 Cohen took part in the Asilomar conference in California, where about 140 biologists, lawyers and physicians drew up voluntary safety guidelines. They agreed that containment should be matched to the estimated risk of each experiment, recommended weakened bacterial strains that could not survive outside the laboratory, and ruled out the most dangerous experiments altogether. Cohen was reportedly uncomfortable with the process and tone of the meeting. Government efforts that followed created the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and formal National Institutes of Health guidelines in 1976.
As experience grew, Cohen argued that the risks of most experiments had been overstated and that containment rules for low-risk work should be relaxed, describing the ideal as a code of standard practice rather than regulation. The wider debate eventually went the way of scientists who said the hazards had been exaggerated, and the rules were gradually eased. Cohen's own laboratory administration manual became a model for handling biohazardous materials safely, and he gave public lectures on the fear of new knowledge.
Asilomar is still remembered as a turning point, both for science and for public discussion of science policy. The guidelines let recombinant DNA research go ahead safely, and by 1995 it dominated biological research.
Why it matters
The voluntary pause and the Asilomar guidelines became a model of scientific self-regulation, cited ever since in debates over new technologies such as gene editing.
About Stanley Cohen
Stanford geneticist who, with Herbert Boyer, invented recombinant DNA cloning in 1973, the technique that launched genetic engineering and the biotechnology industry.
More about Stanley Cohen
- Stanley Cohen co-invented genetic engineeringIn 1973 Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer first moved genes between organisms, inventing recombinant DNA, the technique behind human insulin and the biotechnology industry.
- Stanley Cohen helped build biotechnology in TaiwanBeyond his Stanford laboratory, Stanley Cohen helped develop research collaboration with Taiwan's Institute of Molecular Biology and a biotechnology industry in Taiwan.
- Stanley Cohen investigated how bacteria resist antibioticsStanley Cohen's genetic engineering grew out of a medical question: how bacteria share genes that make them resistant to antibiotics.
- Stanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101 carried the first clonesStanley Cohen's plasmid pSC101, cut at a single site by Boyer's enzyme and carrying a tetracycline-resistance gene, became the vehicle for the first DNA cloning experiments in 1973.
- Stanley Cohen built tools to watch genes at workAfter inventing DNA cloning, Stanley Cohen developed techniques that use reporter genes to follow how genes behave in the cells of animals and other complex organisms.
- Stanley Cohen taught bacteria to take up new DNAIn 1972 Stanley Cohen’s Stanford lab showed that a calcium chloride treatment lets E. coli take up plasmid DNA and pass it on to their offspring.
- Stanley Cohen's patent was licensed to hundreds of firmsThe Cohen–Boyer recombinant DNA patents were licensed non-exclusively, for moderate fees, to 478 companies, spreading gene cloning across the biotechnology industry.
Sources
- Stanley Norman Cohen Wikipedia
- Stanley N. Cohen Papers, biographical note National Library of Medicine
- Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Wikipedia
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