SAN FRANCISCO — At the keynote session of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) meeting, speakers called on members to resist restrictions on their freedom to do vital research by loudly proclaiming the value of their work to society. In the Saturday evening talk, titled, "Opportunities and Challenges in Cell Biology," molecular biologists Andrew Murray of Harvard University and Ron McKay of the National Institutes of Health focused, respectively, on potential research opportunities in the "genomic era" and what stem cell studies can reveal about development and disease.

However, biologist Steven Block of Stanford University and bioethicist Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin Law school warned that government restrictions will unreasonably hamper such research.

Block said that restrictive regulations on biological agents in the wake of the October 2001 anthrax attacks in the US will do more harm than good, discouraging research that would be vital in the event of a biological attack. Attempts to keep biological information under wraps are based on a false analogy with nuclear secrets, he said.

"The nonproliferation approaches we've taken to work on nuclear weapons simply won't work on biological weapons," he said. Examples of this secretive approach are tighter new regulations on the possession and distribution of "Select Agents" such as anthrax, announced December 10, and the designation of certain agents as "sensitive but not classified." These measures amount to "prohibition by paperwork" and could lead to scrutiny of biologists reminiscent of the McCarthy era hounding of suspected communists, Block said.

Instead of secrecy, Block advocated a return to a Reagan-era doctrine of openness. This would not make bioweapons more likely to fall into the wrong hands, since the agents are already widely available and the information already widely published, he said. It would, however, generate more of what is really needed to anticipate and react to bioweapons: "research, research, research."

Bioethicist Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin Law School addressed a different group of research restrictions, but came to a similar conclusion. She said limitations on embryonic stem cell research and a potential ban on human therapeutic cloning in the US were the product of a "narrow" view of the ethical responsibilities of human beings.

Objections to such avenues of research are based on "nervousness" about humans having control over processes that were previously out of their control, such as when to conceive a child. Taking cells from embryos, cloning animals, and a recently-announced attempt to create a cell from scratch are often perceived as "playing God." Political conservatives have often voiced such objections, but as science becomes more complex, "it puts you in a position that is vulnerable to nervousness or criticisms from across the political spectrum," Charo said.

Taking control is not the same as playing God, but "playing human," she insisted. "The essence of your humanness is to take this control," Charo said. The ethical measure of an action should not be whether it breaks a political or religious taboo, but whether its goal is to further a "natural good" such as improving human life.

Although they addressed different subjects, the speakers' recommendations were the same: get out from under the fume hood and do something about it.

"It's time for you guys to get personally involved," Block told the audience of 1,000. He urged scientists to share their opinions with politicians or with colleagues involved in policy. Charo added that science "must resist with all its power the notion that the very research you do is a transgression of some boundary between man and God."