90th Anniversary Issue: 1970s
Genetic engineering, prescient reporting and other highlights, 1970–79
By Science News
Engineering genes
In the 1970s, genetic engineering feats started to come rapid-fire. Scientists were swapping genes between cells (3/20/71, p. 193), making synthetic copies of genes that could function in living creatures (9/1/73, p. 132) and learning to cut and paste genes using chemical scissors called restriction enzymes (3/20/76, p. 188). This quick progress raised hopes of new, better medicines, but also created fears of Frankenbugs escaping laboratories and introducing unstoppable diseases. In the face of growing alarm, scientists met at a seaside California resort in 1975 to agree on how to rein in their own research (right, ideas for creating safer engineered organisms). A Science News editor was there, detailing “this quiet piece of history” (3/8/75, p. 148). The next year, the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued formal guidelines on recombining genetic materials. Any slowdown was minimal, though, and in 1977 commercial genetic engineering got a boost when the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals ruled that companies could patent engineered microorganisms (10/15/77, p. 247). —Erika Engelhaupt