Charles (Chip) Aquadro astounds people when he shows the slide of a human and a chimpanzee. "If we look at the DNA sequence level, humans and our closest animal relative are 99 percent the same," says Aquadro of what is perhaps the most startling scientific revelation to emerge from the genomics revolution. Aquadro is a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. But it's not just that we have a breathtaking genetic commonality with a species of long-recognized kinship. Look again at yeast and fruit flies, at mice and rice. Unthinkable as it may seem, we are all members of the same clan, and not a very far-flung one at that. In just the past four years, as scientists have methodically sequenced the genomes (complete genetic information of a given organism or species) of more than 82 organisms, they have found that 30 to 40 percent of the genes are the same. In this totally unexpected correspondence lies the transformative power of the new life sciences.

"Historically, biologists have worked on just one group of organisms or another, so they didn't have a lot they could talk to each other about," says Kraig Adler, vice provost of life sciences for Cornell. "For this reason, biologists historically have not had as much unity of purpose as the chemists and physicists have had."

No more. Unmasking the genome has given the once-fractured field of biology the coherence that comes with a common language-the nucleotides that make up genes. Regardless of how an organism appears on the outside, on the inside we are made of the same stuff-the structural units of a nucleic acid represented by just four letters, ACGT. All that differs is the combination.

Whether we are aware of it or not, this discovery-and what springs from it-is shaking the very ground of our lives, from the foods we eat to the medicines we take to the environments in which we live.

"One thing we understand very well is that all pathogens are not created equal," says Kathryn Boor, an associate professor of food science, whose laboratory matched the Listeria bacterium in hot dogs with isolates from ill people, halting a nationwide outbreak of a deadly foodborne illness. "Through tools for determining genetic identity we can distinguish between benign and deadly strains of a single bacterium that look alike under the microscope." The anthrax scare has made all the more apparent the need for DNA-based tools that provide the rapid detection and tracking of pathogens present in food or the environment.

Genetic engineering goes well beyond the controversial issue of producing food crops with desirable characteristics, such as enhanced nutritional content. The same technology of gene transfer could be used to move a gene that can synthesize constituents of petroleum into a plant. The result could be a plant that makes plastics.

"This would turn what are now petroleum products, which are made from a nonrenewable resource, into something derived from a renewable resource," Adler says.

Knowledge of the genome and its working will form the foundation of medicines of the future. Not only will "designer" medicines be matched to our genetic make-up to enhance their effectiveness, but new modes of delivery may eliminate side effects. At present, medicines destined for treating a kidney ailment, for example, circulate everywhere, including the brain and other organs where it can have adverse side effects. Genetically engineered delivery vehicles will make it possible to send the right quantities to the right place and only that place. With these and countless more benefits come complex decisions we'll have to make as consumers, let alone as citizens.

"What we are doing in the life sciences is not an academic exercise," Aquadro says. "Regardless of what you do in your life, everybody is going to have to come to terms with the consequences of the new life sciences."

To give Cornell students the best opportunity not only for learning the science behind the new life sciences but also for confronting the tough ethical questions they raise, the university is undertaking the most widespread scientific initiative in its history. For the next five years, $500 million will be raised to move Cornell into the forefront of research and teaching in the new life sciences. This initiative will involve more than 150 faculty from 50 departments in eight colleges, support at least 50 new faculty members, and create up to 100 new graduate fellowships.

"Our students and their parents want the very best," Adler says. "We cannot expect the best students to continue to come here unless we have the most relevant and most exciting environment for their education." While the New Life Sciences Initiative formally grew out of the five-year-old, universitywide Genomics Initiative led by faculty, its foundations are based on hiring decisions made in the college back in the days of deans Kennedy, Call, and Lund.

"They were willing to make tough decisions about sometimes scarce resources that laid the groundwork for the Genomics Initiative," says Adler. "Dean Call, for example, put resources into plant molecular biology . . . and that resulted in bringing in Steven Tanksley, among other key faculty." (Tanksley is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Breeding.)

 

The initiative will integrate the life sciences with the engineering, physical, and computational sciences to conduct research in 12 areas. Among research universities, Cornell is in a uniquely strong position for such an undertaking. First, from the university's very beginnings, one-third of its faculty members have been in the life sciences. And second, the initiative draws upon Cornell's already outstanding programs in organismic biology, materials science, physics, chemistry, engineering, and computational sciences. The Life Science Technology Building will bring faculty from all these areas under one roof. Architect Richard Meier '56, perhaps best known for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, will design the $110 million building to be completed in 2006 on the western end of Alumni Fields (next to the Biotechnology Building). When the 240,000 gross-square-foot building is connected to the Corson-Mudd Halls and the Biotechnology Building across Tower Road to the plant sciences buildings via underground tunnels, it will comprise the largest life science research and education complex in the state.

The building will house not only research scientists but a business incubator and will be home to the newly formed Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology. With nucleotide bases numbering in the millions and billions (the fruit fly has 137 million; we humans have 3 billion), the new life sciences demand continuing advances in statistical analysis and extraordinary computational power.

Through the Genomics Initiative, faculty from the departments of Communication, Rural Sociology, and Horticulture, as well as from the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Human Ecology, and the Law School, have developed research projects, courses, internships, seminars, and speaker series to examine the array of ethical, legal, and social issues that accompany the new life sciences. Faculty from the initiative's Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) focus area will work in the building alongside bench scientists. All too often, the questions of ethics are add-ons to scientific pursuit. Not here.

"Our goal in the ELSI committee is to ensure not only that we develop capacity at Cornell for intelligent discussion of complex issues, but also that those discussions take place within the broader scientific community," says Bruce Lewenstein, ALS associate professor of science communication. The college's faculty, who form the backbone of the New Life Sciences Initiative, know that the most important discoveries of the next decade and beyond will occur at the interface between biology and the engineering, physical, and computational sciences.

"Our intention is to be a national and international leader in those discoveries," Adler says. "We already are the leader in some areas of the life sciences, but this is not a field in which we can afford to rest on our laurels. We must make the kind of investment that will ensure our leadership or develop a leadership position in other areas of the life sciences where we have an opportunity to do so."

Visit the New Life Sciences Initiative web site at lifesciences.cornell.edu for ongoing information as the initiative comes to life.

- Metta Winter

To find out more about the new Life Sciences Initiative, visit their website at www.lifesciences.cornell.edu

• Programs under the Cornell Genomics Initiative
  Mammalian Genomics
  Plant Genomics
  Microbial Genomics
  Computational Genomics
  Evolutionary Genomics
  Ethical, Legal, Social Issues
  Business Innovations
• Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience
• Biogeochemistry and Biocomplexity
• Molecular and Chemical Ecology