SCIENCE HAS MADE A NEW GENETIC REVOLUTION POSSIBLE / THE ECONOMIST

Modification revolution

Science has made a new genetic revolution possible

Now let it flourish

Thanks to great strides in fundamental research, biology is becoming ever more programmable. 

Two recent scientific advances show just how powerful the possibilities could be. 

The genetic modification of plants is allowing the mechanism of photosynthesis to be tinkered with, as research published in Science on August 18th sets out. 

This could lead to dramatic improvements in the productivity of plants, and eventually to a second green revolution. 

Tweaking the genes of people who suffer from fatal incurable diseases, meanwhile, has also had remarkable results. 

A series of genetic therapies has arrived, or is arriving, in clinics to treat blood cancers, spinal muscular atrophy, haemophilia and sickle-cell disease. 

The task now is to spread these gains far and wide.

The consequences of both advances could be momentous. 

The genetic modification of crops promises cheaper, more nutritious and more climate-resilient food for a hungry planet. 

Genetic therapies offer the hope of curing devastating diseases. 

They also allow for one-time treatments that can be transported to the four corners of the Earth, bringing years, decades or a lifetime of benefits to the seriously and incurably ill. 

Imagine a cure for aids or sickle-cell disease that could be taken to the continent of Africa or across the Middle East. 

The accompanying benefits would be similar to the eradication of smallpox.

This tantalising promise has been made possible by a prodigious investment in fundamental research over the years. 

Basic knowledge of genetics and the functions and structures of proteins has proved to be a motor for discovery across medicine and agriculture. 

The private sector, to be sure, plays an essential role in the cycle of innovation. 

But these advances are a reminder that investment by governments and charities is crucial in areas that offer little commercial benefit in the short term, but which in the long term promise to greatly advance well-being. 

Much of the success in treating rare diseases is a consequence of the efforts of charities, often thanks to fundraising by patients and their families. 

Research that benefits low-income countries frequently relies on philanthropic donors with deep pockets, such as the Gates Foundation. 

The investments made in fundamental science today yield the productivity gains of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that these gains will be realised. Gene therapies are a remarkable technical accomplishment. 

But their current enormous cost—often well over $1m to treat a single person—makes them hard for health-care systems to afford, even when they are reserved for fatal rare genetic diseases. 

The idea of using them to treat more prevalent conditions looks prohibitively pricey.

In the past, novel medicines that started out extremely costly have become cheaper. 

Monoclonal antibodies, useful laboratory-made proteins, were expensive when they first arrived, before a decade of advances brought them down in price 50-fold, according to Boston Consulting Group. 

If gene therapy is to live up to its promise, it will need to do even better than this. More efficient photosynthesis, too, will need further investment if it is to be commercialised.

The long-term manufacturing costs of a new green revolution will, thankfully, be low; plants make more plants in a way that treatments never can. 

Gene therapies, however, need innovation to reduce the cost of making them, whether this is in bioreactors or some completely novel way. 

If they are to become more affordable, new therapies also need to experiment with payment mechanisms, such as charging in instalments or by results. 

Pooling demand internationally to purchase therapies could help lower prices, too. 

Here governments, charities and the private sector could usefully work together.

Last, regulators also need to be quicker and more understanding of the gains to society from helping these technologies reach their potential. 

Innovations can languish without appropriate or timely rule-making. 

The regulation of genetically modified crops has been held back by misinformation campaigns, delaying benefits and raising costs. 

Likewise, although experimental drugs obviously need scrutiny, regulators should remember that the alternative in otherwise untreatable genetic diseases is often death. 

Science has made a genetic revolution possible. 

Now that revolution must flourish.