Societal implications of consumer genetics investigated in new film

One person’s saliva can be the beginning of a love story.

The recent advent of consumer genetics, which provides people access to their genetic information, means DNA, including that found in saliva, can tell intensely personal stories. “T3511,” a short film created by Heather Dewey-Hagborg, follows her own increasingly obsessive relationship with an anonymous donor’s DNA obtained through a saliva sample. The film was screened at the Broad Art Center on Friday along with a panel featuring UCLA professors Soraya de Chadarevian and Sri Kosuri, who spoke on the biological context of the film.

“T3511” is a semi-factual portrayal of Dewey-Hagborg purchasing a saliva sample from a lab reagent supplier and using its DNA to uncover the donor’s identity. Starting with a basic genetic profile including the donor’s physical and behavioral traits, she becomes fixated on learning everything she can about the anonymous donor. She isolates and grows the donor’s cells, and even pinpoints the identity of the donor along with the exact facility he donated to. The film ends with her too becoming a saliva donor at the same facility, making her the titular donor T3511. Dewey-Hagborg said this was to become closer to the donor – to put herself through the same vulnerable experience. Having immersed herself in the intersection of genetics and art for several years, she said genetics is an incredibly personal field.

“A genome is a love story because the act of profiling or working with data is actually incredibly intimate and empathetic when it’s enacted on an individual level,” Dewey-Hagborg said. “And a love story is a detective story because we fall for the unknown others, and we begin piecing together bits and pieces and assembling an image of them.”

Chadarevian, a professor in the Department of History and the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, said evaluating how one’s genetic information plays into their identity is an important question. In “T3511,” Dewey-Hagborg does not become obsessed with DNA itself, but rather the person that it traces back to. Likewise, Chadarevian said genetics can never completely revolve around data alone. Data must always refer back to a real-world application in order to contextualize it – without that context, the data is meaningless, she said.

One of the reasons for ambiguity in consumer genetics is the speed at which such technology is progressing, leaving little time for scientists and consumers to discuss its societal implications, engineering professor Kosuri said. Using just a saliva sample, a consumer test and online public databases, Dewey-Hagborg was able to identify the donor. Such genetic tracking and surveillance can only become easier to accomplish as improvements in genetic sequencing accelerate, Kosuri said. There is an interesting parallel between the genetic sequencing technology used in the film and Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors in circuit chips was doubling every two years, he said. Kosuri said he felt the field of genetics has been undergoing a rapid growth similar to that of computer technology in recent years.

“If you just compare (DNA) sequencing over a five-year period, we have about 35 years of Moore’s Law progress. That’s a massive technological feat, and I think we’re just starting to come to grips with it, and I think it’s going to get a lot harder,” Kosuri said. “So I think conversations like these and films like these are really important to start those conversations.”

First-year undeclared student Cameron Jewett said she felt the use of an artistic medium to bring these genetics-related issues to light would be an effective method to broaden them to a wider audience beyond those with scientific backgrounds. For instance, Dewey-Hagborg said her becoming a donor in the film was intended to be poetic, with her obsession culminating in her joining the anonymous donor and restarting the cycle.

“The issues that (Dewey-Hagborg) discussed are super important in a society that’s continually evolving,” Jewett said. “By portraying (the film) with a poetic narrative, she opened (the issues) up to a whole realm of people.”

While much of the discussion panel focused on the film being a cautionary tale about the privacy dangers of consumer genetics, Dewey-Hagborg said she views the issue as much more complicated and ambiguous. When Kosuri said that much of the discourse regarding modern biotechnology is overwhelmingly cautious in regards to issues such as privacy and surveillance, Dewey-Hagborg said there is an emotional and human side to be seen in both the film’s story and the field as a whole.

“It’s really interesting to think through different ways of being close to other people, and different ways of feeling, desire, intimacy and so forth,” Dewey-Hagborg said. “My interest in working on this project came not from a dystopic impulse so much as thinking through the future of relationships and of these kind of human connections.”