Asilomar, Gene Cloning’s Origins, and Its Commercial Fate

This paper delves into the historical development of recombinant DNA technology, examining the pivotal controversies surrounding public health and commercialization that emerged with the prospect of gene cloning in the 1970s. The analysis will focus on the recombinant DNA experiments planned, conducted, and aborted by Janet Mertz and John Morrow, two graduate students at Paul Berg's Laboratory at Stanford University. Their experiments, as I show, served as catalysts for both fear and excitement within the biomedical research community and beyond. This paper begins by reconstructing in some respects Mertz's and Morrow's investigative pathways, their contributions to technical developments in gene cloning, and their youthful perspectives on genetic engineering. While Mertz's initial experimental plan led to the establishment of the Asilomar I Conference in 1973, Morrow's subsequent cloning experiment, in collaboration with Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer, played a crucial role in shifting scientific and public sentiments around recombinant DNA, intensifying the tension between safety concerns and commercial aspirations before, during, and especially after the more famous Asilomar II Conference of 1975. The latter part of this paper briefly examines the commercial fate of early gene cloning within the context of the complex interplay between scientific advancements, societal and public health concerns, and proprietary interests that culminated in Genentech's cloning of the artificial insulin gene. This paper concludes by discussing how concerns about responsible research practices and biosafety regulation were by the late 1970s increasingly overshadowed by critiques concerning the impact of regulations and academic patenting on scientific competition and laboratory culture.