It wasn't too long ago that we heard that the Human Genome Project (HGP) would soon be completed. This suddenly spawned a plethora of speculative TV and newspaper articles dealing with everything from cloning to the creation of cyborgs and much in between. The floodgates were then opened to interviews with would be gene therapists who would, in time, be able to cure or prevent just about any condition, disease or malady that flesh is heir to. Mortal coils, some said, would in future be shuffled off by appointment only.

In turn came a flood of would-be future legislators who bombarded us with terms for the new relationships people would have to each other when they had been cloned from each other, created from strands of mitochondrial DNA and nurtured in artificial wombs and the like. Even the semen of the human male, we are now told, won't be a necessary prerequisite to the birth of female babies in the future.

People in the DNA business, the scientists and the gene therapists, soon became aware that there's gold in them there genes and began to speculate on what could be done to modify people's genes once the gene sequencing stage of the HGP is complete.

Peter Bennett

As the world becomes more polluted and people's DNA becomes damaged by exposure to UV radiation, toxic gases and substances (the way human genes are affected by cigarette smoke causing lung cancer and UV radiation causing skin cancer) there will be less and less healthy genetic material to go around. There seem to be three obvious solutions

• (A) we can save present day genetic material for our kids and grandkids
• (B) we can buy it from people who live in the world's most pristine environments and
• (C) we can steal it.

DNA blood storage banks are not difficult to find on the Internet although they are by no means common. Nevertheless, the reputation of blood banks has suffered in recent years. Inadequate screening of HIV carriers who donate or sell their blood and, sometimes, sheer incompetence in record keeping and labeling have made the public somewhat wary.

Buying blood is nothing new, it's been done for decades and one's genetic material can be stored indefinitely for some future use in this way providing the power supply is constant. In future can we expect those living in the remotest back blocks of exotic Tasmania (where they claim to have the cleanest air and water in the world) to sell us their DNA? How much will they charge us for a cancer suppressor gene so we can keep Uncle Arthur, who's a hundred and fifty years younger than us, on the planet?

But what of method (C) the bit about stealing the stuff? I was first alerted to the fact that people steal other people's genes when I came across the heading GENE THEFT whilst surfing the net. There are organizations out there who, I've read, take blood samples from indigenous tribes under the guise of health care and then store the blood. As national and international laws presently stand these organizations can patent anything they find in the blood samples they take -- like a cancer suppressor gene for Uncle Arthur. What's more they don't have to pay a cent for the blood taken in those samplings!

All this I found at www.DNACapsules.com, an Australian based human DNA tissue bank with links to, of all things, a Tibetan Terrier DNA tissue bank and another site about cloning family pets.

For $95 the company places your hair and nail clippings in a glass vial and encase the whole thing in some kind of resin just like a paperweight. A process they claim will store DNA samples "for centuries to come" rendering them all but impervious to natural disasters, power outages and what insurance companies usually refer to as acts of -- dare I mention it? -- God.

But, do I care, and how would I know, if the gene with which somebody else was made whole came from me? If it had my name stamped on it I could maybe jump up and down until I received compensation or, at least, recognition.

But who owns my genes anyway and why should I be so selfish as to deny them to others less fortunate? What moral rights, let alone commercial rights, do I have to my genetic makeup?

Well, it seems that's just what a select few lawmakers in the first world are busy with right now. They're asking themselves questions about the proprietary ownership of personal and group/tribal DNA. It seems they are coming down on the side of each individual having his/her ownership rights over his genetic material. All very well of course and I won't let anybody take a sample of my blood ever again without my being present while it's being analyzed. And, I'll take what's left back home with me.

All very well indeed; but what happens when my daughter needs a healthy gene from some other individual who won't let go of their ownership rights? It seems that the only way I can be sure of protecting my genes for my descendant's future use may be to knock on the door of somebody like www.DNACapsules.com after all.

Presumably I can legally will my genes to my children? In any case it wouldn't surprise me to find that there's some sort of rejection problem between the genes of different families even though we're told that any old gene from the correct position on the double helix will do.

It is impossible to postulate where human gene technology will lead us but it is already evident that its future directions will be down multiple paths. In a world where the pace of change itself is accelerating, we need to be able to apply some kind of moral brakes to the wheels. If technology is allowed to run too far ahead of morality we run the risk of irreparable moral and ethical rifts in the basic family structures which form the very fundament of western civilization.

DNA banking however does have one very practical function --identification. The events of September 11th have highlighted the fact that even if we know where the remains of our loved ones are located, it may still not be possible to identify them by traditional methods. Fingerprint identification is impossible after a short period of time and large scale dental matching, reliant on traceable records, can take years. DNA matching, however, is easily computerized and can be matched with decades old bone and teeth samples.

Born in England he migrated to Australia in the early seventies and has traveled extensively throughout Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. Along the way he has written for various English language newspapers and periodicals in nine countries. He returned to Australia in 1999 after a ten-year absence. He is at present engaged in writing two humorous books about his sojourns in Turkey and Poland.