Angeline Yu

(Un)certainty in Science

Uncertainty. It is a characteristic that is prevalent throughout science, and in what we still do not know in bioethics. It was certainly how I felt the first time I walked into the program, not knowing what was to be expected of my knowledge or experience. But that fear was quickly replaced bit by bit with the little things, like the way our instructors immediately dove into our various learning styles first to see what works best for us, the way we were always given time to reflect and retain what we just learned, even the way our lab groups all looked at each other and laughed nervously in the beginning because we weren’t exactly sure what we were doing. I always knew and believed that the littlest things make the biggest differences. I had no idea how true that would hold on a biological level as well. 

We read an article about a woman named Henrietta Lacks, and one of the first labs we ever did was with HeLa cells, her immortal cells. These cells are permanently suspended in metaphase, organized into chromosomes. When we drop them from a high distance, the cells break open, and when viewed under a microscope, we can see the various cellular parts inside a cell, including the cytoplasm and the nucleus. I was extremely fascinated with what I saw, and with the realization that struck me as I looked into just a couple of the trillion tiny organisms working in our bodies right now; while we are studying these microscopic cells that are seemingly smaller than us, we are actually working towards something bigger than us. 

Back in the classroom, we began a discussion about the bioethics of using these cells. These cells do not merely come out of nowhere. Every part of science, big or small, has a story, and in this case, our HeLa cells came from an African American woman who had cervical cancer and died from it. Without her permission, researchers used her cells to create an immortal cell line that has changed the face of medicine forever. There was a huge ethical question at hand. Does the improved lives of millions of people affected by diseases that HeLa cells helped cure justify the expense of a disadvantaged woman, her family, and her descendants? What about the stakeholders, all those directly and indirectly involved? The companies, the researchers, the doctors, the patients and their families; the list goes on. We learned the 5 steps of bioethics identifying the biological issue, formulating the facts, considering the controversy, and addressing alternatives. This concept stuck in my mind as we continued to explore other cancer cases, especially when we studied a specific one pertaining to the BRCA1 gene. With this gene, we were able to perform a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) on it to copy the DNA repeatedly, an ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) to determine the presence of receptors or other biomolecules commonly associated with breast cancer, and CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) to finally cut the DNA using 2 gRNAs and the CAS9 protein.

Just as important as the science of BRCA1 and the mutations that cause the tumor suppressor to become cancerous, is the patient story. In this case, we dove deeply into the principles of biomedical ethics, which never left my mind as we continued to do labs and visit other labs. With Henrietta Lacks, I pondered over the respect for her (1). In visiting Cecelia Moens’ zebrafish lab and Rachel Garcia explaining the processes of using these tiny fish to discover their goals, I thought about how they maximize benefit and minimize harm (2). And listening to Edwin Lindo speak so passionately about the Critical Race Theory, I really considered the justice (3) and how far we’ve come scientifically and socially today. Our study of bioethics resonated so deeply with me because science is so fundamentally human, and as humans, we need to remember to step back and reflect on the stakeholders and take all those involved into consideration. 

Through these last couple of life changing weeks, though there is still much uncertainty in the science field and what I do not know, I know for certain that science is a field that I will dedicate my life to forever. Fred Hutch has given me opportunities, experiences, knowledge, and people that I will never forget. Explorers, never stop exploring!