Medicine: One for the Gene Engineers

Of all the possible benefits promised by the controversial new work with recombinant DNA (TIME cover, April 18), none has been more widely publicized than the mass production of insulin by re-engineered bacteria. If these tiny insulin factories could indeed be created in the laboratory, they would yield a virtually unlimited supply of the hormone, which is of vital importance to many diabetics. Last week scientists at the University of California in San Francisco reported that they had taken an important first step toward that goal. Using the bold new technology, they not...