Browse content similar to Sir John Sulston - Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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suspicion has fallen on Boko Haram. Science is constantly changing and | :00:15. | :00:19. | |
deepening our understanding of ourselves and our planet. Is it | :00:19. | :00:25. | |
time to give scientists a more prominent role in the debate about | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
humanity's strategic choices - economic, political and | :00:29. | :00:33. | |
environmental? My guess today is already in the thick of that debate. | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
Sir John's Alston is a Nobel prize- winning molecular biologist who led | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
the Royal Society study into the global impact of population growth | :00:42. | :00:50. | |
two decades on from the global Earth Summit. Can science help the | :00:50. | :01:00. | |
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Sir John Sulston, welcome to HARDtalk. You have spent many years | :01:20. | :01:28. | |
inside a lab studying a tiny, tiny species of one in the most minute | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
detail, yet you sit here and in the last few months you have been | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
pondering the future of planet Earth. Is there a connection | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
between those to make intellectual pursuits or have you changed your | :01:40. | :01:44. | |
priorities? No - there is absolutely a connection. It | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
illustrates very well that science always raises as many questions as | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
it answers. When you work on one problem, you find yourself working | :01:53. | :01:58. | |
on something else, with the one, I watched the sell the visions and | :01:58. | :02:03. | |
worked them out and then we wanted to get at the genes to find out how | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
they were controlled. -- the cell divisions. I had to work on the DNA. | :02:08. | :02:16. | |
I had to work on all of the DNA. The work on the entire genetic | :02:16. | :02:26. | |
:02:26. | :02:28. | ||
make-up of the animal. Our lads had got good at doing that. This is | :02:28. | :02:38. | |
:02:38. | :02:38. | ||
through the 1990s. -- Labs. That in turn will lead me on to social | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
issues because I discovered... Wide bay lead you want to social issues? | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
So many great scientists stay in the laboratory and you left the | :02:45. | :02:51. | |
laboratory. It is a terrible disappointment! I eventually | :02:51. | :02:58. | |
admitted I was not doing laboratory anymore. It is about the data and | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
the access to the data that we have not just drawn from the were more | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
these human but all matters of a -- manner of animals and plants. This | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
is the basic stuff of biology and everyone should have access to it | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
regardless of their wealth. It is the building blocks of life. Before | :03:14. | :03:24. | |
:03:24. | :03:27. | ||
we get to the big questions, the', let's stick with the micro. Did you | :03:27. | :03:31. | |
realise that, through these dealings with the microscopic worm, | :03:31. | :03:40. | |
did you realise it would lead you to dealing with humans? Place to go | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
to parties and people would say, "Have you really spent 20 years | :03:44. | :03:50. | |
working on something you cannot see?" And died said yes. It turns | :03:50. | :04:00. | |
:04:00. | :04:01. | ||
out the pieces of that one's machinery is -- were's machinery | :04:01. | :04:11. | |
:04:11. | :04:12. | ||
are quite similar to pieces of our machinery. It has neurons and nerve | :04:12. | :04:19. | |
cells that connect. An example of something that did transfer was the | :04:19. | :04:24. | |
mechanism of cell death. It is an important part of our development. | :04:24. | :04:32. | |
The reason we have digits and not webbed feet is because cells die. | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
The control of that process is very important. It is also important in | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
cancer, to stop tumours growing. It is important cells do not die in | :04:41. | :04:44. | |
the nervous system. Neurone degeneration is one of the problems | :04:44. | :04:51. | |
we have. All of these processes are controlled, in part, in jeans that | :04:51. | :05:01. | |
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you can find exact equivalents for in that one. -- genes. -- that worm. | :05:05. | :05:12. | |
What percentage can you put on the amount of DNA that the worm has in | :05:13. | :05:19. | |
common with the human? It is less than 50%. I do not know the exact | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
number. It is a grey scale. You can find partial matches for some and | :05:24. | :05:30. | |
exact matches for other. A lot of the basic mechanisms of handling | :05:30. | :05:40. | |
:05:40. | :05:43. | ||
house sales grow and things like that are similar. -- how cells grow. | :05:43. | :05:52. | |
In 2002, Bill Clinton was there to announce the human genome mapping. | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
He came up with a phrase that a piece said that we had discovered" | :05:57. | :06:04. | |
the language with which God created life -- we had discovered, "The | :06:04. | :06:11. | |
language with which God created life." Do you believe that now? My | :06:11. | :06:21. | |
:06:21. | :06:30. | ||
old mentor raised the point that if DNA is the language with which we | :06:31. | :06:37. | |
create God. You are the son of an Anglican priest. He was a man | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
involved in missionary work for a while. The reversal you have made | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
it suggests you are somewhat sceptical about the role of God. | :06:45. | :06:50. | |
Are you? The role of God is most probably a construct that humans | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
create for their own purposes, which is exactly what Sydney were | :06:54. | :07:04. | |
:07:04. | :07:09. | ||
saying. -- was saying. It now seems to me the mapping of the human | :07:09. | :07:19. | |
:07:19. | :07:21. | ||
genome has opened up a new world in biology and medicine. Can we now | :07:21. | :07:25. | |
determine how human beings will live, what they might die from ant | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
can we put for the proposition that they can be repaired, perhaps | :07:28. | :07:35. | |
before birth? -- and can we. It is -- it should not be so strongly | :07:36. | :07:43. | |
stated. Our genes are the recipe book for starting us off. All kinds | :07:43. | :07:50. | |
of defects in the genes can be discovered, that we can then find | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
drugs for or it may be one day replace. Gene therapy is much | :07:53. | :08:03. | |
:08:03. | :08:11. | ||
harder. -- or maybe one day they can be replaced. One of the first | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
Defects to be sorted out, cystic fibrosis, we do not have the gene | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
therapy for. They have been advances in the treatment of cystic | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
fibrosis but not through gene therapy. You have to consider | :08:24. | :08:32. | |
profound ethical questions. It is a question of delivery. Cystic | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
fibrosis, they thought you would be able to squirt genetic material | :08:36. | :08:46. | |
into the lungs, but that does not work. The question is should will | :08:46. | :08:49. | |
be doing it? Should we be coming close to a situation where one | :08:49. | :08:59. | |
:08:59. | :09:00. | ||
could see, as we develop this idea, human beings can be perfected. | :09:00. | :09:05. | |
Impairments in the human being could be eradicated. A motorcyclist | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
was injured in a motorcycle accident and the surgeon put it | :09:10. | :09:18. | |
together with pieces of metal - that was before. When I talk about | :09:18. | :09:23. | |
possible cures for cystic fibrosis, squirting genes into the lungs, | :09:23. | :09:29. | |
that would be somatic gene therapy, if it worked. You are now thinking | :09:29. | :09:36. | |
about - and I agree this is a much more interesting field - to go into | :09:36. | :09:44. | |
the embryo. There are ethical reasons to not do that. I like to | :09:44. | :09:46. | |
pin you down. You are one of the most influential scientists in the | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
UK today. Is there a real apical question about the amount of work | :09:50. | :09:56. | |
that should be done on the genetics of embryos? Get a good question. If | :09:56. | :10:01. | |
you can improve the quality of life of the embryo very markedly then | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
there might be a case for it. E Peters a matter of a more cosmetic | :10:05. | :10:15. | |
:10:15. | :10:15. | ||
thing, there may not be. -- if it is a matter. I will be very much | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
against doing much with embryos at all because we are not good enough | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
at predicting the exact result of inserting a new bit of material. | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
That raises questions of privatisation in research and | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
funding, because, if the judgement is made that it is ethically | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
acceptable and desirable, it may be that that is where research monies | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
is -- are final. If the judgement is that it is dangerous and we | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
should be leery of it then it might not get the funding that might make | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
it better. That is why we have medical committees that have | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
scientists and lay people discussing the possibilities and | :10:50. | :10:57. | |
outcomes. -- ethical committees. The question then is how the | :10:57. | :11:01. | |
balance the dominance of the scientific community against the | :11:01. | :11:10. | |
views of the lay people. -- how to balance. Scientists should be | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
encouraged to research all they can but when it comes to rolling out | :11:15. | :11:21. | |
the products of research then there should be a very broad information. | :11:21. | :11:27. | |
Scientists are experts and when it comes to ethical questions, there | :11:27. | :11:37. | |
:11:37. | :11:37. | ||
should be a mini democracy about it. We have not talked about | :11:37. | :11:43. | |
commercialisation. In your field of Microbiology, cellular work, you | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
were always aware that there were other people in your field that | :11:47. | :11:56. | |
were driven by the profit motive in a way that perhaps he were not. -- | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
you were not. You seem to take the view now that the profit motive | :12:00. | :12:04. | |
should be kept out of this sort of work. I don't think I said that. | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
You said that one point that it would be very worrying, very wrong | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
if capitalism got control of the tune in genome. I was talking about | :12:13. | :12:19. | |
the fundamental data. -- the human genome. The issue with Craig was | :12:19. | :12:25. | |
weather data was going to be owned and marketed by a single | :12:25. | :12:35. | |
:12:35. | :12:38. | ||
corporation or was it going to be shared and accessible to everybody? | :12:38. | :12:48. | |
:12:48. | :12:55. | ||
Where I come from, in my lifetime, is the place where people regarded | :12:55. | :13:01. | |
public goods very highly. I think we have to get back to regarding | :13:01. | :13:07. | |
public goods that highly. I dare say - I didn't want to put words | :13:07. | :13:16. | |
into on mouth - but I dare say Craig Venter was sitting here, he | :13:16. | :13:21. | |
would say that a desire for profit is one of the best ways of stirring | :13:21. | :13:26. | |
up the creativity that produces innovation. If you take that away, | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
innovation might come much more slowly. I don't think that is true. | :13:29. | :13:35. | |
If you look at history, tremendous innovation was done in the public's | :13:35. | :13:41. | |
fear. Vaccines were not made in this way. The polio vaccines were | :13:41. | :13:45. | |
done by government and charitable funding and by people who cared | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
much more about curing kids with polio then they did about making | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
profit. I will just point out that there are other ways of doing | :13:53. | :14:03. | |
:14:03. | :14:05. | ||
things. When Craig Venter says that the human genome pases bought out | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
there for all to see, in reality the people that benefit most from | :14:10. | :14:13. | |
that are the big pharmaceutical companies, who do not have to pay | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
for the basic research, can put a twist on it, patent it and use it | :14:18. | :14:23. | |
for huge profits. In the system at the moment it is important that | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
those companies have access to the data. He feels badly about this | :14:27. | :14:31. | |
because his company tried very hard to put patterns themselves on the | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
genes. He feels badly about it because he thought that people like | :14:35. | :14:45. | |
:14:45. | :14:47. | ||
It never got to that point because the public side remained in | :14:47. | :14:53. | |
competition. Let me points had one more thing. This data is shared by | :14:53. | :14:59. | |
all countries, all policies. It is not just America and the UK. That | :14:59. | :15:05. | |
is important, that we do not have a volume of important data are | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
falling out of jurisdiction. I have put this argument in terms of money | :15:10. | :15:15. | |
and proffered but there is another way of looking at this and that is | :15:15. | :15:20. | |
basic security -- proffered. Some people at their would be inclined | :15:20. | :15:30. | |
to appease the sorts of information you and others are putting out | :15:30. | :15:38. | |
their -- out there. The latest research on avian flu and the way | :15:38. | :15:41. | |
to which researchers have found it can cross over from birds to small | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
mammals. The federal authorities in the US responsible for by a | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
security said you should not publish some of this because it | :15:50. | :15:54. | |
could get into the wrong hands. Surely you can be worried? They | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
have moved on. They have had lengthy discussions. People in this | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
country and other countries have been involved. They have decided | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
that it is better to publish. Why? When you redux something you draw | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
attention to it and say it is dangerous. You make sure every | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
wrongdoer will be homing in on this stuff. The only safe way to go is | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
to publish everything as much as you can because then you are open | :16:21. | :16:29. | |
to dealing with it, to cures as well as to abuse. You have a benign | :16:29. | :16:33. | |
view of human nature? No but I think wrongdoing behind-closed- | :16:33. | :16:38. | |
doors is more dangerous than having things opener so you can look at | :16:38. | :16:46. | |
what is going on. There is no other choice -- Open. Science should not | :16:46. | :16:52. | |
have a tool used, good and bad. I do not like the implication that | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
there is one or another. There is a huge grey area? However, there is | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
the notion that you can somehow exclude the bad bits. That is | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
simply a false hope. We have to deal with it in other ways and look | :17:06. | :17:13. | |
for people who are abusing it, whether it is distributing a | :17:13. | :17:20. | |
disease. Bear in mind that having it in the public domain gives | :17:20. | :17:29. | |
people access to having vaccines in advance. What we nice to do in the | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
lab will be done by evolution in the long run -- what we achieve. | :17:34. | :17:43. | |
You have moved from the lab to the smaller public sphere. You have | :17:43. | :17:48. | |
been working under the auspices of the Raj society, looking at the | :17:48. | :17:54. | |
future impact of population growth -- Royal Society. It is picking up | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
on the Rio Earth Summit a few years ago. I quote to use the words of | :17:58. | :18:05. | |
the leader of that summer. -- to you. -- that a summit. He said that | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
either we have to reduce our population or nature will do that | :18:08. | :18:15. | |
brutally for us. Do you think that still applies? Yes. But the moments | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
when that wides this indeterminate and it is not sudden. You do not | :18:18. | :18:24. | |
just run a long and run off a cliff. What will happen is that if we do | :18:24. | :18:27. | |
not move things in the right direction they will move in the | :18:27. | :18:37. | |
:18:37. | :18:37. | ||
wrong direction. There is an important thought. The great late | :18:37. | :18:42. | |
18th century thinker on resources and population growth predicted | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
that we would repeatedly asked of our abilities to feed ourselves and | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
therefore there would be the most cataclysmic falls in a global human | :18:52. | :18:56. | |
population. Time after time people who followed his line of thinking | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
have been proven wrong. It sounds to me like you are up a support of | :19:01. | :19:07. | |
is? I am not. I am not using a single equation -- a supporter of | :19:07. | :19:14. | |
him. Let's begin with facts. Let's begin with the impact of us, people, | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
on the earth. It is extremely visible in a way that it was not in | :19:19. | :19:28. | |
the 18th century. It was predicted before and people side a former | :19:28. | :19:35. | |
think but let's look into that a bit further. Right now we are | :19:35. | :19:41. | |
causing climate change. I said that unequivocally. I know people would | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
criticise that statement but the overwhelming weight of evidence is | :19:44. | :19:51. | |
that we are now causing climate change through our emissions of | :19:51. | :19:57. | |
carbon dioxide and we are going further down that line. Is that the | :19:57. | :20:02. | |
most dangerous result, consequence, of population growth? That is an | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
immediate and present one and it will cause, if we do not arrested | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
in some way, caused rising sea levels and the flooding of coastal | :20:11. | :20:16. | |
areas. It will also lead to the reduction in crop yields in areas | :20:16. | :20:20. | |
that are becoming drought-stricken. As part of this study I visited | :20:20. | :20:28. | |
Ghana. You can read more broadly in many studies but it in Ghana people | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
have had to migrate from the north where the format is drying up to | :20:32. | :20:39. | |
the south. They are having to live in a informal housing -- farmland. | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
It is not good for them and their teacher and the feature of their | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
children, and this is because of climate change. -- the future. | :20:48. | :20:52. | |
do not have much time. It seems to me to be ironic that you are | :20:52. | :20:59. | |
worried about the continuing rise in population, some say over 9 | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
billion by 2050, and yet your scientific research, all of the | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
things we talked about a earlier about genetics and the | :21:06. | :21:12. | |
understanding of how we are bills, suggests you are one important | :21:12. | :21:15. | |
player in the advances we have made that mean human beings live longer | :21:15. | :21:21. | |
lives? That is the thing. We do not want to end miserably. We want | :21:21. | :21:25. | |
everybody to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. That is why we | :21:25. | :21:34. | |
have to pay attention. Look... Terry? Foreign severally. We know | :21:34. | :21:41. | |
that there are over 200 million women who would like to have access | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
to materials to avoid their next pregnancy -- foreign territory. | :21:46. | :21:56. | |
:21:56. | :22:00. | ||
Conception? Yes. -- volunteering. I think it is extremely important for | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
their health and the education of the children that they are able to | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
limit their families and they should have this need for full. | :22:09. | :22:19. | |
Earlier he said you had a benign it view of? -- earlier you said you | :22:19. | :22:24. | |
had a benign view of human beings. Are you underestimating the way in | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
which human beings have come up with technology to deal with the | :22:28. | :22:33. | |
pressure of population? No. We are conscious of the fact we should not | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
underestimate that ability but we are looking at a set of things. We | :22:37. | :22:41. | |
have talked about climate change but let's move on. One problem is | :22:41. | :22:49. | |
species species at a race of probably 1,000 | :22:49. | :22:54. | |
times a rate of before human beings. You may not care about other | :22:54. | :22:59. | |
species of care about the environment. I do care but I am | :22:59. | :23:03. | |
aware that we have had mass extinctions before. This is the | :23:03. | :23:09. | |
first one caused by the actions of a single species. We are throwing | :23:09. | :23:13. | |
away the possibilities of future medicines for the future and | :23:13. | :23:21. | |
destroying our capabilities in other ways. We are over using | :23:21. | :23:28. | |
fertilisers in a way that is necessary to feed people but is | :23:28. | :23:36. | |
causing problems in our estuaries. A whole series of challenges add up. | :23:36. | :23:44. | |
I quote from you. You say we cannot continue as we have done. Have you | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
any clear prescription of what we must do? The important thing before | :23:48. | :23:55. | |
we end is to say that although we have talked about population it is | :23:55. | :23:59. | |
also consumption. Population and consumption matter. So they have to | :23:59. | :24:05. | |
be constraints? Somewhere we have to be persuaded. Constraint is not | :24:05. | :24:09. | |
the word. And unless everybody is convinced that constrained is | :24:09. | :24:19. | |
:24:19. | :24:19. | ||
required, material consumption needs to be reduced. It is about | :24:19. | :24:24. |