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The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics is a product of both the past and the future. It is at once an acknowledgement of lessons learned from the world’s nuclear history and a mechanism to help society keep up with science in the fast-developing field of genetics. During World War II, there was little discussion about how the Manhattan Project – the building of the atomic bomb – would impact human society, little thought about the possibility of an increased chance of catastrophic warfare, said Chancellor Albert Carnesale, who has studied the subject and represented the United States in negotiating limits on nuclear weapons. The issues that could arise as scientists learn more about genetics are many, ranging from how society deals with genetic differences between groups of people to who gets access to health care services derived from genetic research, he said. Scientists finished mapping the human genome in 2003, identifying all genes in human DNA. Genes produce enzymes and other proteins that govern everything from the way cells function to eye color. “One thing that was clear as I looked at the history of, say, the Manhattan Project, was that almost no thought had been given to what would be the implications to society for the development of these weapons,” Carnesale said. “You don’t have to wait until the problems arise before you start thinking about it,” he added. So he gave his support about four years ago to the creation of the Center for Society and Genetics, which examines the role genetics plays in fields like anthropology and philosophy, and vice versa. The subjects they tackle touch a seemingly endless array of issues: patenting genes; stem cell research; the history of genetics; genetic privacy and discrimination; and biotechnology and medicine. The center’s members are hoping to win approval by September for a minor in society and genetics and a new freshman general education cluster that deals with issues in the area of study. The backgrounds of the center’s directors reflect its focus on interdisciplinary methods: Edward McCabe is a pediatrician; Norton Wise, a historian of physics. The way the center bridges North and South campus makes it unique, said Associate Director Sally Gibbons. Few universities have programs of a comparable nature, partly because higher education has historically centered on individual fields like biology or political science, she said. “The disciplinary boundaries inform how people get hired or tenured,” Gibbons said, “and so it’s hard to break those boundaries.” When Wise decided about two years ago to join McCabe in developing the center, he wanted to emphasize the coevolution of genetics and society. While experts tend to address ethical and legal problems related to genetics, Wise argued that viewing society and genetics as developing side by side would be a more prudent approach. History proves the point, he said. For example, people of cultures that traditionally relied on sources other than cattle for sustenance are more likely to be lactose intolerant, unable to comfortably eat dairy products, he said. The lack of a dairy culture affected the evolution of people’s genomes. This kind of development cannot be captured by simply studying the natural or social sciences, Wise said. “The problems of the world do not come in the boxes we call departments,” he said. “They do not come in the boxes we call physics, or chemistry, or whatever.”

Educational Initiatives The Center for Society and Genetics is located in a quiet corner of Hershey Hall, down two long corridors from the building’s main doors. The staff members occupy a few offices and a conference room that doubles as a kitchen. A microwave and small refrigerator share the space with a four-burner stove, a printer, and fax and office supplies that sit on one counter. But the modesty of the center’s physical appearance tells little of its goals. Besides generating research, the center’s staff is active in developing educational initiatives at UCLA as demonstrated by its key role in drafting plans for the proposed cluster on sex and gender and a minor in society and genetics. The minor, if approved, would encourage students from North and South campus to sit together in the classroom and think about genetics through an interdisciplinary lens. Gibbons said the hope is that the subject, society and genetics, would attract students from varied fields – from future scientists curious about the ethical and other societal implications of their work to pre-business students interested in the biotechnology industry. “In the (upper division) courses you’re really digging into, you’re not really close to people in other majors,” Gibbons said. The new minor would change that, she said. The core faculty of the proposed cluster would be comprised of specialists in behavioral neuroscience and genetics, evolutionary psychology, sociology, and human genetics and medicine. According to the proposal for the series, courses would discuss a slew of questions about gender and sex such as: What determines our sexual orientation and sexual desires? How does the law define the sex of an individual, and how does it treat males and females differently? How does politics influence what questions scientists are allowed to ask? How does our gender influence the diseases we get?

Looking Forward Following the success of the Human Genome Project in 2003, there were many people who believed that the future of the human race was written in DNA and that DNA was the blueprint of life, McCabe said. “What is very clear is that is false,” he said. “It’s completely erroneous.” Babies born to mothers starved in the third trimester of pregnancy, after the children’s DNA has already formed, are prone to suffer from diabetes, obesity and heart disease because of the way their genes express themselves, McCabe said. The question isn’t nature or nurture, McCabe said. The environment has as much to do with how people turn out as the genes encrypted in their DNA. The genetics revolution is still young, Gibbons said. There is still much unexplored terrain. The Center for Society and Genetics will operate with a core group of about 20 faculty, staff and students for the next few years, encouraging dialogue between the public, the media and experts of all disciplines as the science progresses, she said. The center has hired a historian of biology and biomedicine and is seeking faculty in other areas including philosophy. There are plans to move to a larger space with about a dozen offices. Staff and faculty members are looking forward so that perhaps the human race can avoid repeating the mistakes of the 1940s. “Scientists are aware of the fact that they cannot work in a vacuum,” Gibbons said. “(After World War II), there’s been a realization that the implications of the science that is getting done ... are so vast that scientists alone, I don’t want to say cannot, but maybe, should not, be the sole proprietors (of) the decision about what to do with the science.”

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