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Spanish biologist says DNA may not define human identity
Alfonso Martínez Arias published a work last summer in which he gives the rare example of a woman who has two genomes.
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The rare case of Karen Keegan is one of the examples cited by Spanish biologist Alfonso Martínez Arias in his book 'The Master Builder', published last summer. In this work he claims that DNA may not be the main factor responsible for defining human identity.
According to the newspaper El País, Karen Keegan is the result of two eggs fertilized by two sperm that instead of giving rise to two fetuses merged into one. In this way, the woman had two genomes, something she only came to realize in 2002.
In that year, Karen Keegan suffered severe renal failure and had to receive a kidney transplant. After genetic tests to determine which of her three children would be most compatible in this process, the woman discovered that two of them were not her children.
With this case, Alfonso Martínez Arias suggests that DNA does not define human identity. "An organism is the work of cells. Genes only provide materials for their work", he reveals in the work.
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He says that DNA is not a mere instruction manual or a blueprint for the body. "The question often arises as to how it is possible that such similar genomes can build animals as different as flies, frogs, horses and humans. However, the real wonder is how the same genome can build structures as different as an eye and a lung in the same organism. Let's give cells the credit they deserve", he explains.
"Cells are the masters of construction and there is no project in the genome that directs what they do", he continues. In the work he also gives the example of the first cat that was cloned, in 2001. It became known as Copy Cat. The animals were not at all identical since genetic information had been copied that had some inactive genes.
"People didn't want a cat with the same genes as their pet, they wanted a cat that was exactly the same. That's simply impossible."
Alfonso Martínez Arias explains that it is in the cell that one of the great enigmas lies. "We still don't know much about how cells are organized to use the genome, but the answers are there, beginning to manifest themselves in the wonders of cells or embryo-like organoids."
Read Also: Gene therapy shows promising results in blind patients (Portuguese version)
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