Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA

Paul Berg, a leading researcher in the field of recombinant DNA technology, who subsequently shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger, helped organize the 1975 conference.

The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA was an influential conference organized by Paul Berg,[1] Maxine Singer,[2] and colleagues to discuss the potential biohazards and regulation of biotechnology, held in February 1975 at a conference center at Asilomar State Beach, California.[3] A group of about 140 professionals (primarily biologists, but also including lawyers and physicians) participated in the conference to draw up voluntary guidelines to ensure the safety of recombinant DNA technology. The conference also placed scientific research more into the public domain, and can be seen as applying a version of the precautionary principle.

The effects of these guidelines are still being felt through the biotechnology industry and the participation of the general public in scientific discourse.[4] Due to potential safety hazards, scientists worldwide had halted experiments using recombinant DNA technology, which entailed combining DNAs from different organisms.[3][4] After the establishment of the guidelines during the conference, scientists continued with their research, which increased fundamental knowledge about biology and the public's interest in biomedical research.[5]

  1. ^ "First recombinant DNA". The Human Genome Project. http://www.genome.gov/25520302 accessed 12 November 2006
  2. ^ "Profiles in Science, The Maxine Singer Papers". U.S. National Library of Medicine. 12 March 2019.
  3. ^ a b Paul Berg, David Baltimore, Sydney Brenner, Richard O. Roblin III, and Maxine F. Singer. "Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Vol. 72, No. 6, pp. 1981-1984, (June 1975): 1981.
  4. ^ a b Paul Berg and Maxine F. Singer. "The recombinant DNA controversy: Twenty years later". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Vol 92, pp. 9011-9013, (Sept. 1995): 9011.
  5. ^ Berg and Singer (1995), pp. 9011-12