From the Archives (June 8, 1970): When man plays god – The Hindu

From Mendel who a century ago formulated his famous laws of heredity to Khorana who has just succeeded in producing a synthetic gene, the biochemical unit of inheritance, is a long and exciting story. But the first, major breakthrough was achieved only in the past decade with the discovery and isolation of the mysterious D.N.A. (deoxiribonucleic acid) and R.N.A. (ribonucleic acid), the basic substances in the living cell, respectively carrying the predestined pattern of life (or the genetic code) and the means of its communication to final expression. The remarkable achievement of the team of scientists of the Wisconsin University, headed by Dr. H. G. Khorana, takes these probes into the very nature of life a big step forward. Whether it will also bring within man's grasp, in the foreseeable future, the means of tinkering with the genetic code to alter his very being to desired ends is too soon to say. And yet such possibilities of genetic engineering, thrown open by the virtuoso Khorana performance, can be both exciting and frightening.

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From the Archives (June 8, 1970): When man plays god - The Hindu