Media Acclaim

Laboratory of General and Comparative Biochemistry, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, October 1971. Pictured from Left to Right: Dr. Carl R. Merril, Dr. Mark R. Geier, Dr. John C. Petricciani.


The New York Times, Sunday, October 31, 1971, "Altering The Cell - The Vistas Are Breathtaking" [Click Here for Full Text Article]


"Last year some 200,000 babies were born in the United States with genetic defects ranging from a cleft lip to mental retardation. Can such inherited disorders be cured by chemically altering the genes? Can we, for instance, replace a defective gene with a good one?...In an ingenious series of test-tube experiments, Dr. Carl R. Merril of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Mark R. Geier of George Washington University and Dr. John C. Petricciani of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, used skin cell from a patient suffering from galactosemia, a gene defect which prevents the victim's body from metabolizing ordinary milk. Normally this gene produces an enzyme in the blood stream that breaks down the milk sugar known as galactose so that it can be easily absorbed by the body. The newborn with galactosemia can become retarded, even die prematurely, if fed milk. The scientists also made use of a virus called 'Lambda phage,' a package of genetic material which happens to include the missing enzyme-producing gene. Adding this virus to the defective human cell, they discovered that there was a marked increase in the cell's output of the enzyme. Conclusion: The bacterial virus had invaded the human cell, apparently altering some of its genetic material and leaving it with instructions to produce the vital enzyme needed to digest milk sugar...[This discovery] is the most significant-step in a sequence that began in the late 1940's when scientists first became aware through bacterial studies that you can theoretically add a gene to a cell and control its heredity."