- Person
- Marshall Nirenberg
- Lived
- 1927–2010
- Field
- Biochemistry, genetics
- From
- American
The story
When Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei read the first word of the genetic code in 1961, the news travelled far beyond the laboratory. Newspapers predicted cures for cancer, and the New York Times wrote that biology had reached a new frontier, with a revolution greater in potential than the atomic bomb. Some scientists were uneasy. The geneticist A. G. Steinberg predicted that the knowledge might soon let scientists change genes at will, and the Nobel chemist Arne Tiselius warned of tampering with life and influencing heredity. Nirenberg himself joked to Francis Crick that the American press credited his work with curing cancer, causing the end of mankind and revealing the molecular structure of God.
By 1966 his laboratory had deciphered all 64 codons, and Nirenberg took the questions seriously. In a handwritten note that year he borrowed the words of the virologist Salvador Luria: the impact of science on human affairs imposes on its practitioners an inescapable responsibility.
In August 1967 he published an editorial in Science titled "Will Society Be Prepared?". He predicted that scientists might one day program cells with synthetic genetic messages, giving humanity the power to shape its own biological destiny, a power that could be used wisely or unwisely. When people became capable of instructing their own cells, he argued, they should hold back until they had sufficient wisdom to use that knowledge for the benefit of mankind. Such decisions, he wrote, must ultimately be made by society, and only an informed society could make them wisely.
The editorial set off a public debate that spread well beyond scientific journals. Joshua Lederberg, the 1958 Nobel laureate, worried that its language could cause public misunderstanding and undercut the very research needed to gain that wisdom. Inspired by it, the Chemical Institute of Canada held a 1968 panel on the consequences of genetic research.
Nirenberg kept returning to these questions. In 1998 he signed a letter from the American Society for Cell Biology opposing human cloning, provided the ban did not block vital biomedical research; he supported a 2001 statement by eighty Nobel laureates in favour of stem cell research, and in 2002 he joined forty American laureates backing therapeutic cloning.
His 1967 warning came years before recombinant DNA made genetic engineering real. It anticipated questions that society is still working through in the age of gene editing, and it helped establish the idea that scientists should invite the public into decisions about powerful new technologies.
Why it matters
Nirenberg helped begin the tradition of scientists inviting public debate on the ethics of genetic technology, from recombinant DNA to gene editing.
About Marshall Nirenberg
NIH biochemist who in 1961 read the first word of the genetic code, UUU for phenylalanine, then led the race to decipher all of it, sharing the 1968 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
More about Marshall Nirenberg
- Nirenberg's lab found genes that shape the nervous systemIn the late 1980s Marshall Nirenberg's laboratory discovered four new homeobox genes in fruit flies, NK-1 to NK-4, which help control nervous system development.
- Nirenberg uncovered a molecular basis of opiate withdrawalIn the early 1970s Marshall Nirenberg and Werner Klee showed how morphine suppresses a nerve-cell enzyme and how cells compensate, explaining tolerance and withdrawal.
- Nirenberg and Leder found how to read codon orderIn 1964 and 1965 Marshall Nirenberg's lab, with postdoc Philip Leder, devised a filter-binding method that revealed the exact letter order of genetic code words.
- Nirenberg's nerve-cell lines served labs worldwideFrom the late 1960s Marshall Nirenberg built a bank of neuroblastoma cell lines with chosen nerve traits and supplied them to scientists worldwide for decades.
- NIH colleagues rallied to help Nirenberg crack the codeIn the 1961–62 'coding race' against Severo Ochoa's large lab, many NIH scientists set aside their own work to help Marshall Nirenberg decipher the genetic code.
- Marshall Nirenberg read the first word of the genetic codeAt 3 a.m. on 27 May 1961, Marshall Nirenberg's NIH experiment showed that the RNA 'word' UUU codes for phenylalanine, the first codon ever deciphered.
- Nirenberg spoke up for persecuted scientists and peaceMarshall Nirenberg protested Brazil's 1969 purge of scientists, backed appeals against hunger and nuclear escalation, and urged ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Sources
- Beyond the Laboratory, 1967–2002 NLM Profiles in Science
- The Marshall W. Nirenberg Papers: Biographical Overview NLM Profiles in Science
- Public Reactions to the Genetic Code, 1961-1968 U.S. National Library of Medicine
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.