Genetics

Over the past several years Genetics has become a leading link to understanding how our body works. By mapping out deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, scientists plan to find cures for various diseases, develop better, more efficient drugs, grow new organs, evaluate environment hazards, and eventually build a human being. Inside of every single cell in our bodies there are 46 chromosomes that are made up of DNA. Half of your chromosomes are inherited from each parent, DNA is strung along the chromosomes. DNA is the living instructional manual found in all living organisms.

The building block letters of DNA are Adenine, (A), Thymine, (T), Cytosine, C), and Guanine, (G). These are repeated over and over again about 3 billion times in our body alone. DNA can be subdivided into genes, with each gene carrying the information on how to produce a unique protein. Each gene consists of three of the building blocks placed together. Along the stretches of DNA, genes tend to occur in clusters, like cities separated by vast emptiness. When the DNA is collected all together you have a genome.

In the past scientists believed that there was more than 100,000 genes in the human genome, but recent studies by Celera Genomics and many other scientist based eams, have found that the number of genes to be 35,000. (Article #1) This new found information has made some biologists ecstatic and has wounded the pride of others. There are many people who are bothered by the fact that they dont seem to have (many) more than twice as many genes as a fruit fly, said Eric Lander, director of the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research.

It seems to be some kind of affront to human dignity. The 30,000 genes in our body compared to the 13,600 in the fruit fly does seem to raise questions about why we have the abilities to do so much more when we dont ave that many more genes in our genome. Even though all creatures share the same DNA code, some people still believe that there is a step-change between the rest of nature and humans that separates us from them.

The Human Genome Project, starting in the 1980s, is a research program designed to construct a detailed genetic and physical map of the human genome, determine the complete sequence of human DNA, localize 30,000 to 35,000 genes, and perform similar analysis on the genomes of several other organisms. Every species has its own genome. Every individual animal within a species has its very own specific genome. Unless you are an identical twin your genome is different from everyone on earth – and from everyone who has ever lived.

Even though you have your own distinct genome, it is still recognizable as a human genome. Analyzing the human genome will give us insights into why people like the foods they do, why certain people die of heart disease and others of cancer, and why some people are outgoing and others are paralyzed by shyness. We will also be able to know what body shape your children will have, the number of calories they are able to burn off in rest, and the types of sports they will excel at and enjoy. Studying the genome can related to a number of things, you can study the whole genome, or only a small part.

You can study the sequence, or function of a specific gene. We are able to observe what happens when something goes wrong with a gene, and how it affects our life and body. Certain diseases are cause by mutations in a particular gene such as Blindness, cancers, bowl disorders, Leprosy, arthritis, Turners syndrome, Down Syndrome, and many other types of diseases. These genetic diseases are caused by changes (mutations) in the DNA sequence of a gene or a set of genes. This can happen at ny given time, from when we are a single cell to when we are close to 100 or older.

Some scientists believe that there are specific disorders genes that cause the disease, but it is a mutation that causes the normal genes to operate improperly. So to clarify all the mishap it is better to say that there are mutated genes that cause genetic disorders. In some diseases such as Down Syndrome and Turners Syndrome, entire chromosomes, or large segments of them, are missing, duplicated, or otherwise altered. Single-Gene disorders result when a mutation causes the product of a single gene to be altered or missing.

Sickle-cell Anemia is an example of this type of disorder. Mutations in the beta-globin gene cause the blood cells to become distorted and take on a sickle shape. This makes traveling through the blood vessels hard and they begin to clog in the narrow passages, causing various problems within the body depending on where the clog is at. Multifactorial disorders result from mutations in multiple genes, often coupled with environmental causes. The complicated bases of these diseases make them strenuous to study and treat.

Some examples of this type of disorder are heart disorders, diabetes, and cancers. Certain kinds of thyroid cancers are accumulated by malfunctioning genes, such as Familial papillary thyroid cancer, and Medullary thyroid cancer (Article #5). Cancer is caused by certain changes in our DNA sequence. But cancer is not developed by one mutated gene, its the accumulation of many defected genes. This can happen through inheritance of mutations or addition of new mutations during the life span of an organism.

Additions of new mutations can come from exposure to the sun, UV rays, infection by certain viruses, spontaneous mutations and changes in copying the DNA during the aging process. The genetic basis of cancer is possible by the cancerous cell dividing at inappropriate times. This could mean that the cells either do not receive the signal to stop dividing or they do not require outside signals to start dividing, so they divide when they feel like it. When cancerous cells come in contact with other neighboring cells they do not stop dividing like normal cells do, but they pile up and form a tumor.

Cancerous cells also have the ability to invade healthy tissue, leading to the spread of cancer throughout the body. Scientists were able to pin down the exact gene that is responsible for prompting eoples internal wake-up alarms. A mutation in this gene can cause the person to wake up at very inappropriate times and causes them to become tried in the middle of the afternoon. The mutation was found in the human Per2 gene on Chromosome 2. This is common to many people the statistics show 1 in every 10,000 all the way up to 1 in every 100,000 people.

There are a large quantity of people that dont realize that it is a disorder so they never come in for treatment (Article #3) Colourblindness is another of the many generic disorders. It is found in the X chromosomes which is passed down from the female, never the male. If a woman with the gene that entitles Colourblindness has a girl, the X chromosome of the baby will cancel out the colourblind chromosome (X) a majority of the time. There is a slim chance that when the X chromosome of the baby is weak the colourblind X will prevail and the girl will be born colourblind.

Females are the only carriers of this generic trait, very rarely does a female get the trait. If that same woman were to have a boy, the X chromosome will predominate the Y chromosome and the boy will indefinitely be colourblind. The ratios of this disease are very different for men and women, 1 in 12 for men, and 1 in 250 for omen. Inherited genetic mutations arise about twice as often in men as in women (Article #6) Scientists have found that a retinal gene appears to be responsible for at least some of the cases of macular degeneration, or blindness.

The gene, which plays a role in the metabolization of a fatty acid called DHA, has become defective and does not perform its assignment accordingly. This suggests that people with the defected genes may have trouble using the fatty acid in normal cell mechanisms. This leads to the deterioration of the macula, a central part of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. The loss of this ision limits what a person can do, such as driving which is no longer acceptable, they have trouble reading, and they lose all peripheral vision. This defective gene is past down from generation to generation.

To help cut back on the problems that can be caused by eating foods that are high in DHA, such as salmon, shellfish, eggs, tuna, liver, and many more (Article #2) The entire genetic sequence of the disease labeled Leprosy has been deciphered. This shows that with genetic sequencing of different organisms, such as the Leprosy Bacterium, is extremely helpful in finding new, efficient treatments and drugs. In the case f Leprosy it also help scientists to calculate how to grow the bacterium in a laboratory which was impossible up to now (Article #8).

Ankylosing Spondylitus, or spinal arthritis is also formed from gene mutation. The gene attacks the spine making it rigid as a poker, the extreme case, to just not allowing to move easily, the moderate case. With learning how the gene is able to make this happen we will be able to treat this, and maybe even cure it (Article #7). Other disorders are not caused by malfunctioning genes or abnormal chromosomes, but certain viruses can infect a gene and that gene will multiply with that nfections written in it. AIDS is a worthy example of this type of disorder or disease.

AIDS is cause by an infection with the HIV virus. The HIV virus infects an organism incorporating its own DNA into the chromosomes of the infected cell. When this cell divides, the viral DNA is inherited by all the daughter cells of the infected cell. So in a way the infected cell now has a genetic disorder, caused by the introduction of a new DNA into its chromosomes. The viral DNA will not transfer onto the next generation because the sperm and egg cells of the organism are not daughters of the infected cell. Scientists have recently been able to manipulate a skin cell to turn into heart tissue.

This can be radically helpful in the production of islet cells that produce insulin needed for diabetes. The scientists turned the clock back on the skin cells to produce stem cells, which have the ability to develop into any desired type of cell, from nerve to liver to muscle. Then they manipulate the stem cell to become a heart tissue. This could be a breakthrough for diabetic people, eliminating the daily insulin shots, and making live just a little it easier (Article #18). Tests with possible cures are been research continually, such as with tobacco plants that contain a human gene.

The gene interleukin10 can be massed produced to help treat bowl disorders. Using genes from other living organisms are growing more common in science (Article #4). To stop the wide shortage of organ transplants needed, scientists have started researching humanized pig organs. The birth of a litter of genetically modified pigs have started this research. Each of the pigs has a marker gene introduced into its genetic code. This produces a knock-out pig, where scientists will knock out the gene that leads o the human immune system.

This will eliminate the rejection of the pigs organs when placed in the human body. The process is called Xenotransplants, and it could start in as little as 4 years (Article #19) In the same sense scientists have been able to turn a plants leaves into petals, allowing nurseries to produce plants that bear flowers where leaves were. This is possible by five genes that are manipulated, either by traditional breeding, or by genetic engineering. Breeders will be able to make colourful double flowers in which stamens and leaves grow into petals and enhance the fragrance.

This not only could help the nurseries but the drug industry as well, by allowing them to grow greater quantities of therapeutic chemicals that come from flowers (Article #17). Additional traits can be discovered by sequencing the genes. Not only will scientists be able to see whether or not you have a fatal disease, but they will be able to envision what type of body type your child will have, what kind food they will have a taste for and whether they will be outgoing or paralyzed with fear about leaving the house. There are innumerable amount of traits that we will be able to see when we look at a ersons genes.

What kind of sports they will like, whether they will be overweight or underweight, how many calories they burn at rest, and whether they are a psychopathic killer (Article #9). We will be able to know ahead of time what kind of lives our children will lead, in some ways this is a good thing because it will prepare us for what type of parenting we have to do. But in other ways if we find out what likes and dislike our child will have we will have the choice, if we want this child or not, this exact thought raises many questions about the morality of genetic sequencing.

Scientists have just encountered the gene that controls the height of humans also governs life and death, meaning that short people are genetically programmed to live longer than tall people. Using Nematobe C. Elegan, worm-like creatures, scientists eliminated these genes and the result is either mutant giant, or dwarf worms. They discovered that the genes that were knock out which produce growth hormones, also influence life expectancy. The lower levels of growth hormones, the longer the life expectancy.

Even though it was only tested on C. Elegans, human have the same nsulin-based growth system, so it applied to humans as well (Articles #20,25). A discovery has been made that there is a gene that explains why moderate drinking can prevent heart attacks. This gene, or variants of it, makes the body break down alcohol very slowly which raises the levels of heart-protecting good cholesterol in the blood. Drinkers with this gene were found to have a sharply lower risks of heart attacks than those that dispense alcohol at a faster rate.

The gene produces enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down alcohol. The gene either breaks down the alcohol uickly or slowly. You inherit one of the genes from each parent, so you can have two fast genes, two slow genes, or one of each. Those who have two slow genes and average one drink a day have a 85% less risk of a heart attack than those who have two fast genes and hardly drink. With conditions such as obesity, overdose of alcohol, smoking, and a history of heart illness the risk was still 35% lower (Article #16).

Jurrassic Park the movie directed by Steve Speilberg, based on a book by Michael Crichton, has raised many questions about the correctness of taking DNA found in fossils and decoding it. Geologists right now are extracting the DNA from prehistoric bugs stomach. If the chance that the DNA turns out to be belonging to a dinosaur they want to decoded it and possibly clone a dinosaur. Cloning is made from a single adult cell joined with an egg cell, the genes of which have been removed, so all the geologists need from the DNA of a dinosaur is the adult cell, and an egg cell.

If the geologists decide not to clone the dinosaurs then they will use the DNA to find out a little more about dinosaurs and the environment in which they lived (Article #10). Apart from just studying the DNA and sequencing the genes, the knowledge of the DNA can be used in fighting crimes. Any type of body fluid and cells can be used to find out who was present at the scene of a crime. Evidence such as sperm, blood, pubic hair, skin cells, and saliva can be taken into a lab and studied to find out who exactly it belongs to. This is accomplished by searching a computer from a DNA Databank.

A DNA Databank keeps records on the DNA of everyone they possibly can, for use in such situations as a crime scene investigation. Once the investigators have a list of possible people that are suspected, they now go and get a swabbing of the inside of their mouths or further testing. People have rejected this, calling it an invasion of privacy. They believe that if employers were to be able to have access to the DNA Databank they would know all about their employee including diseases or disorders, characteristics and traits.

Meaning that if your employers looks at your DNA and finds that you have a history of heart disease in your genes and they believe that you are not fit for the job they can fire you on that account. This is a downfall of keeping DNA files on hand, they can be used against people, not just to help them (Articles #11,12,13,14,15) Scientists have not just been mapping the code of human and animals, but of plants as well. They have been able to genetically modify plants to help them survive longer and produce better food, flowers, or fragrance depending on what they want enhanced.

Genetically Modified foods have become more common in recent years. It was mostly grains that have been engineered with genes from non-grain species that make the plants resist insects or tolerate pesticides. So a farmer can spray his crops with a pesticide and have it kill everything in its field except his harvest. There are some problems with this, uch as allergies in humans. Scientists have yet to figure out whether or not people can develop allergies towards GMOs, but some people dont want to take the chance.

The pesticide resistant plants could jump to wild plants, creating super-weeds or could harm valuable insects by making their food unfit to eat, such as the Monarch butterfly. The Genetically Modified Atlantic and Pacific salmon are growing faster than normal salmon, if the super-salmon were to escape from the production plantations, they could mate with normal salmon and corrupt their whole genetic pool. There is also problems with patent enetically modified plants, if a person suspects that his neighbor was stealing his super-seeds, the only way to prove hes not is to spray his field.

If the crop dies then he is not stealing the crops, but he lost all that years harvest. If the crop lives, then the company can sue the neighbor. So you can see that there is a number of problems that could arise with releasing the GMOs. Some Health officials dont agree with Genetically Modified foods, claiming that it is unhealthy and dangerous to humans and the environment, if not properly controlled. Right now in Canada they are looking for better ways to control GMOs and the sale of them.

Officials believe that their will be a lot of problems with GMOs and how people will react to them being on the shelf, they think that there will be destruction of fields and food products just like the reaction in Europe last year. (Articles #21,22,24) After figuring out the genome of humans there is still Protenome, a complete listing of the 250,000 or so proteins that the 35,000 genes are capable of making. Proteins can vary in health and disease, and the long chains of amino acids do not string out but curl up on themselves in complex 3D shapes, making it indefinitely harder to break the ode.

Most of biology happens at the protein level, not the DNA level, Dr. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics points out. Scientists not only have to figure out what the listing of proteins is but how they change in disease and how they fold. This is dubbed the Greatest unsolved problem in biology. (Article #27) As you can see there is still a long way to go in finding out everything there is to know about Genetics. But when we do find out everything about Genetics and the human body, there is nothing left to the imagination, and a part of that will be sorely missed.

The engineering of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is entirely new, yet genetics, as a field of science, has fascinated mankind for over 2,000 years. Man has always tried to bend nature around his will through selective breeding and other forms of practical genetics. Today, scientists have a greater understanding of genetics and its role in living organisms. Unfortunately, some people are trying to stop further studies in genetics, but the research being conducted today will serve to better mankind tomorrow.

Among many benefits of genetic ngineering are the several cures being developed for presently incurable diseases. Genetics has also opened the door way to biological solutions for world problems, as well as aid for body malfunctions. Genetic engineering is a fundamental tool for leading the world of medicine into the future; therefore, it is crucial to continue research in this field. Today’s research in genetic engineering is bringing about new methods for curing and treating major medical illnesses. The Human Genome Project has allowed geneticists to map the genes of human beings.

This project is far from complete, s the DNA sequence of humans is extremely long, yet it will eventually show geneticists which genes are responsible for certain inherited diseases. Identified genes could be repaired, resulting in the irradiation of inherited diseases, such as cancer. Just last year, the locations of genes for several diseases were confirmed and may soon be correctable. Secondly, research in genetics has brought about a new medical field, genetic counseling. Couples planning to have children can visit a genetic counselor and identify what medical difficulties their child may have.

With continued research in genetics, couples will have the opportunity to become aware of a greater number of medical conditions that may affect their child and can make the proper adjustments needed in advance. Lastly, and perhaps the most important advancement in the curing and treating of illnesses, geneticists are developing a new method for removing viruses from human bodiesDNA scissors. This new method works in a similar way that antibiotics does. When antibodies enter our internal system they attack a specific type of enemy cell or virus and destroy it.

Likewise, DNA scissors enter the body and attack a specific type of enemy virus or cell. DNA scissors are much more effective than conventional antibiotics because they enter the enemy cell and unravel their DNA. With dysfunctional DNA, a cell is a pile of lipids and proteins; cancerous tumors will turn to harmless dumps of organic material, that can be filtered out by the body. DNA scissors will affect things that antibiotics cannot, like AIDS. (Not even AIDS can function without DNA). One day the only thing that will stand between medical diseases and their cure will be the analysis of their DNA.

Genetics now offers a new way to solve the general problems of the world. First, genetic research makes it possible for food to be grown safer, better, and faster, without doing any damage to the environment. With today’s knowledge of genetic engineering, several food companies are investigating possibilities of making more food in less time. Through a process know as gene therapy, geneticists have the ability to modify parts of genetic material in organisms. Geneticists can add attributes to crops, like tomatoes, that would make them resistant to insects.

With such features, dangerous chemicals like DDT that harm the environment, plants, animals, and humans would not be needed. Other enhancements would include prolonged life spans for food products after harvesting. For example, tomatoes have been engineered to last longer so they do not have to be harvested early. Thus, it is unnecessary to spray chemicals on them to prematurely change their color. While the US has not yet approved the new crops, several countries have and are making great profits off them.

Finally, through a proccess known as gene splicing, geneticists are able to cross ifferent organisms and therefore breed beneficial life forms. The Supreme Court ruled that scientists can patent newly created life forms, so several companies have invested in genetic research. General Electric provided the funding for a team of geneticists to create a new life form; the result was oil eating bacteria. The bacteria consume oil and are of no threat to the environment, so far. A major use for the bacteria is to clean shores after an oil spill.

It is impossible to clean every drop of oil on the shoreline, so the bacteria are released to remove any traces of oil tediously and perfectly. General Electric is in the process of obtaining , or already has obtained a patent for the bacteria. It is quite clear that genetics will have an active role in our quest for solving world problems. Genetic Engineering makes it possible to treat and correct bodily malfunctions. First, the use of genetics allows us to produce supplements for those who have chemical deficiencies. The most well-known example of such a supplement is insulin.

In the 1800’s, diabetics received insulin from sheep, yet as it can be imagined, it took a great deal of sheep to sustain one person. After the discovery of DNA, geneticists used gene splicing to develop a bacterium to produce insulin. By cloning the human gene for insulin and inserting it into bacteria known as E. coli, the scientists created bacteria that produced insulin and when the bacteria reproduced, they reproduced the human gene as well. Next, genetic engineering will make it possible to create vital organs for transplants. A major medical difficulty today is the lack of organ donors.

Waiting lists are always getting longer, and people are losing their lives as a result. In the future, geneticists would be able to clone pieces of organs and, then, make organs for surgeries involving transplants. Geneticists may even be able to clone cells from damaged organs and then engineer exact duplicates. Genetics will definitely have a large impact on correcting of malfunctions in the human body. Without doubt, genetic engineering has already helped make human life easier and will continue to do so in the future, provided that research on genetic engineering continues.

All advancements in science have led to positive and egative results, yet, the rewards of genetics greatly outweigh the disadvantages. Mankind is entering a new era in medicinegenetic engineeringone that has received criticism. As the field of genetics inevitably becomes integrated with medical practice, people may continue to protest against what they believe genetic engineering will unleash on our society. Rather than allowing fear and ignorance to derail one of the most humane efforts underway, scientists and the society must find bridges of communication and understanding, through education, to promote the benefits of genetic engineering.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international research program designed to construct detailed genetic and physical maps of the human genome, to determine the complete nucleotide sequence of human DNA, to localize the estimated 80,000 genes within the human genome, and to perform similar analyses on the genomes of several other organisms used extensively in research laboratories as model systems.

This project is estimated to take 15 years to complete from October 1990 and has already cost the U. S. 2. 5 billion dollars. The scientific products of the HGP will comprise a resource of etailed information about the structure, organization and function of human DNA, information that is the basic set of inherited instructions for the development and functioning of a human being. What is the overall goal of the Project? In September, advisory committees at DOE and NIH approved new 5-year goals aimed at completing the Human Genome Project two years earlier than originally planned in 1990.

The new plan, published in the October 23, 1998 issue of Science, covers fiscal years 1999-2003 and calls for generating a “working draft” of the human genome DNA sequence by 2001 and obtaining he complete and highly accurate reference sequence by 2003. A new goal focuses on identifying regions of the human genome that differ from person to person. Although the vast majority of our DNA sequences are the same, scientists estimate that humans are 99. 9% identical genetically.

These DNA sequence variations can have a major impact on how our bodies respond to disease, environmental insults, such as bacteria, viruses, toxins, drugs and other therapies. Other major goals outlined in the plan include exploring the functions of human genes using methods that include comparing human DNA equences with those from organisms such as the laboratory mouse and yeast. Then they must address the ethical, legal, and social issues surrounding genetic tools and data, develop the computational capability to collect, store, and analyze DNA.

If successful, the completion of the human DNA sequence in 2003 will be the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick’s description of the fundamental structure of DNA. Already revolutionizing biology, genome research provides a vital thrust to the increasing productivity and pervasiveness of the life sciences. Current and potential applications of genome research address national needs in molecular medicine, waste control and environmental cleanup, biotechnology, energy sources, and risk assessment.

Scientific Processes Chromosomes, which range in size from 50 million to 250 million bases are broken into very short pieces. Each short piece is used as a template to generate a set of fragments that differ in length from each other by a single base (template preparation and sequencing reaction steps). Now the fragments in a set are separated by gel electrophoresis. Then fluorescent dyes allow separation of all four fragments in a single lane on the gel. The final base at the end of each fragment is identified (base calling step).

This process recreates the original sequence of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs for each short piece generated in the first step. Current electrophoresis limits are about 500-700 bases sequenced per read. Automated sequences analyze the resulting electropherograms and the result is a four-color chromatogram showing peaks that represent each of the 4 DNA bases. After the bases are read by a computer, another computer is used to assemble the hort sequences in blocks of about 500 bases each, called the read length into long continuous stretches that are analyzed for errors, gene-coding regions, and other characteristics.

Finished sequence is submitted to public sequence databases, such as GenBank. Now The Human Genome Project sequence data is made free to anyone around the world who would like to view it. Benefits of the completed Project This project will be a great jump in understanding human genes which will provide us with many answers we would like to know, and many that we haven’t thought about yet. Genome maps of other organisms will provided so we can compare them to the human genome and let us compare and understand other biological systems.

Information generated and technologies developed will revolutionize future biological explorations. Genes involved in various genetic diseases will be found, and further studies will lead to an understanding of how those genes contribute to genetic diseases. Among these diseases will be the genes involved in cancer. Medical practices will be altered when new clinical technologies based on DNA diagnostics are combined with information coming from genome maps.

Researchers will be able to identify individuals predisposed to particular diseases and come up with therapeutic practices based on new classes of drugs, immunotherapy techniques, avoidance of environmental conditions that may trigger disease, and possible replacement of defective genes through gene therapy. Another benefit will come from understanding genetic similarities between mammals and humans. There isn’t that much difference between human biology and cattle or mouse biology.

What we learn about human genetics will help us to raise healthier, more productive, disease-resistant farm animals that ight, through wise and careful genetic engineering, produce drugs of value to us. Technologies, databases, and biological resources developed in genome research will have an enormous impact on a wide variety of biotechnology-related industries in such fields as agriculture, energy production, waste control, and environmental cleanup. The potential for commercial development presents U. S. industry with a great deal of wealth and opportunities from sales of biotechnology products.

The Criticism With all the benefits people tend to forget about a lot the things that could hurt our way of life by uncovering this nformation. This new information could be used to take biological warfare to a new level that is incomprehensible. It could also create a form of genetic racism that could separate countries and states. There are some less serious but still very important legal and social and ethical issues that will also need to be addressed. One of the major ethical issues is if we will allow this technology to be used to genetically engineer a so called “Super Race”.

In my opinion I don’t think messing human nature in this way is a good idea at all. It could cause less genetic diversity which makes humans what hey are. There’s also the big picture of over population and how it could ruin our planet. Nature has to take it’s course even with this technology unless we can figure out how to make other planets inhabitable for humans. Genetic Information Discovered So Far According to the Genome Database (GDB), the public repository for human genome mapping information, over 7600 genes had been mapped to particular chromosomes in January 1999.

Tens of thousands of human gene fragments have been identified as expressed sequence tags (EST’s). These are lso being assigned to positions on chromosome maps The physical mapping goal is to establish a marker every 100,000 bases across each chromosome (about 30,000 markers). The most complete map yet was published in summer 1997 and featured about 8000 landmarks, which provided about twice the resolution of previous maps. Similarly detailed maps have been produced for a few individual chromosomes, but this map offers landmarks across the entire human genome that are also positioned relative to each other.

Currently an estimated 5% of the human genome has actually been sequence. My Opinion In my opinion I believe that the information found by the Human Genome Project is going to be a useful tool for our future, and well worth the billions of dollars it is costing us. But there will need to be laws made to protect it from being misused. It should be used to cure diseases by gene therapy and to better our lives with this technology. It shouldn’t be used to make a “Super Breed” of humans or cloning. The information should also be banned from being used in the military. If this information is not used improperly I believe it will better our lives.

Genetic engineering has developed and blossomed at a frightening rate in the last decade. Originating as merely an area of interest for scientists, genetic engineering has now become an area of which all people should be somewhat knowledgeable. DNA profiling has many uses, both positive and negative, in our society. Aside from its usefulness in many legal investigations, DNA profiling can be used in the workplace to discriminate against employees whose profiles could pose a financial risk.

For example, genetic technology can and has been used to determine the capacity of a person to contract certain diseases, such as sickle- ell anemia, which could cause many employers to hesitate in the hiring and training of such people. In the early 1970’s, the United States began a carrier screening for sickle-cell anemia, which affects 1 in 400 African-Americans. Many of those identified as carriers mistakenly thought they were afflicted with this debilitating disease. Furthermore, confidentiality was often breached, and in some cases, carriers were discriminated against and denied health insurance.

Nevertheless, genetic profiling has been beneficial in paternity suits and rape cases, where the father or the assailant could be identified. However, despite its growing number of utilizations, DNA profiling is extremely hazardous when results are inaccurate or used to discriminate. The frequency of genetic testing in criminal investigations (more than 1,000 in the U. S. since 1987) has been increasing dramatically despite the inconclusive testing by the scientific community in many aspects of forensic identification.

A correlation between DNA patterns taken from a crime scene and taken from the suspect has often been enough to charge a person with the offense in spite of proof that some procedures for testing DNA are fallible by legal and scientific standards. The complexity of scientific evidence, especially DNA profiling, has also caused many problems within the legal profession. It is no longer enough for attorneys or members of the jury to merely be knowledgeable about the law. People need to familiarize themselves with today’s scientific research rather than relying on the credentials of a scientific expert witness.

Too often, jury members become in awe of the complicated, scientific terms used in court and take a scientist’s testimony as fact. Lawyers need to increase their scientific knowledge and keep up with ongoing research in order to competently question and nderstand scientific evidence put forth. But these do not represent the only possible downfalls of DNA profiling in criminology. The involuntary seizure of one’s blood or hair undermines the constitutional rights guaranteed to all citizens by the Fourth Amendment (protection from unreasonable searches and seizures).

Nevertheless, many argue that a DNA sample taken from a suspect could lead to an indictment or release of the individual and, thus, warrants an exception from the Fourth Amendment. Besides, one could make a plausible argument that, once held in custody, the eizure of a person’s strand of hair does not violate a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights or rights of privacy because the hair is visible. However, the use of DNA profiling does not end in criminal investigations. DNA testing has ventured out of the courtroom in an effort to show a genetic link between race and violent tendencies.

If successful, this link will do nothing but justify prejudice attitudes toward minorities, particularly the black race. Furthermore, such biological approaches towards criminality do not take into account sociological factors, such as poverty, and ould inevitably lead to the practice of controlling minority children with the use of therapeutic drugs or worse. For this and other reasons, courts of all levels must implement harsher scrutiny in the area of genetic profiling and its uses. There is also a current effort to create a national database of DNA, much like the existing database of fingerprints.

Supposedly, the use of numerical codes will allow huge databases to search for a match of a individual DNA band. However, these matches are not 100 percent. This inconclusive correlation between DNA patterns has led to a heated debate which has culminated n federal court with Daubert vs. Merrel Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. The ruling in the Daubert case said that the acceptance by the scientific community is not enough by itself to allow certain scientific techniques into court as evidence, especially given the reality that a suspects entire future could hang in the balance of a scientific finding.

Many people have argued that the use of a national DNA database infringes on the individuals constitutional rights to privacy. However, law officials have claimed that the advantages this database presents for society supercede the individual’s rights. This dilemma can easily be associated to the “social contract” presented by Thomas Hobbes. In this contract, Hobbes believed that each individual should give up certain individual rights in order to achieve protection from the whole. The forfeit of the right to privacy of one’s DNA can thus be considered one of these forfeited rights.

A person must weigh the advantages of having a past, present, or future criminal’s DNA profile on database with the disadvantages of having one’s own. But the disadvantages will outweigh the advantages when private institutions develop access to this atabase and use the information for discriminatory purposes. The impending usage of a national DNA database poses many possible risks of political and commercial abuse of such information, along with the danger this information falling into the hands of unfriendly parties, are unpredictable.

Such unpredictability, certainly, is a violation of people’s rights to privacy. For instance, if a private institution, such as a bank, an employer, or an insurance company, receives access to this information, it could influence decisions on loans, hiring practices, insurance rates, etc. Society, then, is faced with a conflict between an individual’s right to privacy in one’s genetic composition and the employer’s or insurance company’s interest in knowing about a person’s health problems. This conflict will constitute the remainder of this paper.

Over the next ten to fifteen years, scientists involved in the federal government’s “human genome project” will try to identify in detail each of the human cell’s estimated 100,000genes. The knowledge derived from the project will enable physicians to detect an increasing number of diseases and predispositions for diseases. When Frank married at age 31, he decided to take out a life insurance policy. A swimmer and avid racquetball player with no previous hospitalizations, he felt certain his low premiums would be a worthy investment for his family.

Weeks later, after a routine physical exam, he was shocked by the insurance company’s response. Sophisticated DNA testing had revealed in Frank’s tissues a single missing copy of a so-called RB antioncogene and minor variations in two other genes. Computer analysis showed the molecular misprints more than tripled his risk of getting small-cell lung cancer by age 55. His application was rejected. With the newfound ability to reveal an individual’s molecular secrets come significant new possibilities for discrimination.

The medical records of people who apply for insurance are stored by the Medical Information Bureau, a data bank shared by a consortium of hundreds of insurers. Ethicists warn that genetic tests could tempt insurers to discriminate against the “healthy ill;” people who are not yet sick but who carry genetic traits predisposing them to future illness, such as in Frank’s case. However, these people may not be denied health insurance totally. Rather, they may be guaranteed a basic level of treatment and rationed out of more costly procedures.

For example, someone who carried the cystic fibrosis gene, even if asymptomatic, could be denied a lung transplant. The competitive nature of the industry may compel insurance companies to use genetic information, since the fundamental principle of the insurance business is “pooling uncertainty. ” The concept of adverse selection also causes insurers much dismay. Adverse selection refers to the probability that people privately aware of a medical problem are more likely to seek medical insurance.

This negates the insurers policy of setting premiums with accordance to statistical information on the rates of illnesses and sicknesses in society. “The whole foundation of insurance is based on the fact that we and the insurance applicant are operating with equal levels of knowledge and ignorance. ” Without this level of ignorance, insurance companies will lose their social value as a means of spreading risk across groups of people. Genetic engineering with respect to insurance does not stop here. Further development could lead to a complete knowledge of who will develop a disease and when.

This will drastically effect the practicality of life insurance policies. “I can see 20 or 30 years from now that life insurance policies will be essentially accident policies, because everything else will be foreseeable. The essence of insurance is you assess a risk against the unknown; if there’s no medical unknown, the only unknown is whether you’re going to get hit by a bus. ” Another striking danger of insurance companies discriminating with respect to a person’s DNA profile is with infants. The companies may become extremely hesitant in insuring babies who have a high susceptibility to certain iseases.

In fact there have been some cases where the insurers actually demanded the parents to abort the fetus or risk losing insurance. This obviously constitutes a blatant violation of people’s rights. Plus, it dangerously causes the insurance companies to begin to play the role of God, that is, in deciding who should live and who should not. “By agreeing to pay for some infants and not for others, insurance companies could inadvertently practice a form of economic eugenics, based not on grand designs for a superrace but on who requires the least expensive medical care.

Perhaps, some form of national health insurance is the only remedy for these problems. “Genetic testing may provide the best reason yet for a nationalized health-care policy. ” But insurance companies are not the only private entities with the potential to discriminate against people with unfavorable genetic profiles. Employers, too, have a substantial financial risk in hiring an employee with an above average propensity for illness or early death. Ellen spent four years completing her PhD in industrial and chemical engineering.

Now, wincing as a company octor drew a few drops of blood for her preemployment physical, she could hardly contain her excitement about the job she’d been offered at one of the country’s foremost metallurgical research institutes. Two days later the phone call came. You are perfectly healthy, the young doctor said. But tests have revealed you harbor a gene that can result in decreased levels of a blood enzyme, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. Without the enzyme’s protection, you have a slightly increased risk of developing a red blood cell disease if you come into contact with certain chemicals in our laboratory.

I’m sorry, he said. The job has been offered to someone else. As Ellen’s case shows, the danger of discrimination certainly does not end with health insurance. There is also a grave danger of discriminatory hiring practices in the workplace. In 1989, Jonathan Beckwith, a geneticist at Harvard, and Dr. Paul Billings, director of the division of genetic medicine at Pacific Presbyterian Hospital in San Francisco, completed a small-scale study of genetic discrimination.

Of 55 responses, Billings and Beckwith could document 29 people who reported multiple instances of discrimination by adoption agencies, mployers and insurers. And the percentages will only get worse as more and more companies implement genetic screening policies. In a survey of 400 U. S. firms conducted in 1990, 15 percent of companies responded that by the year 2000, they planned to check the health status of not only their prospective employees, but their dependents as well before making a job offer.

These statistics show all too well the impending problem with genetic discrimination in the workplace. Employers will have a number of potential justifications for genetic testing in the workplace. In some cases, there may be an argument in favor of testing for public health reasons. Fortunately, judges and juries have predicted these justifications and have began to make the necessary rulings to ensure true justification for discrimination.

The relevant judicial opinions indicate that there will have to be a significant or reasonable likelihood of harm to others from having the individual employed. Hopefully, rulings such as these will serve their purpose in protecting the right of all citizens. With the balance of interests laid out (individuals concerned about onfidentiality and discrimination, and insurers and employers concerned about adverse selection and fiscal liability), it will fall upon legislators and the courts to define the proper use of genetic information.

Policy makers will have to confront an apparent discrepancy between the reality of genetic variability and the democratic ideal that all citizens are “created equal. ” The information itself is not the problem. What matters is how the knowledge is used. Scientific advancements are not to blame. “What science does is give society opportunities. What we have to do is look at these opportunities and then set p the constraints and the rules that will allow society to benefit in appropriate ways. Without the proper constraints, the price of glimpsing one’s medical future is high indeed. DNA profiling can be an extremely beneficial tool in the war against crime. However, when used for discriminatory purposes, this tool becomes a crime in itself. The ability to compare and contrast a person’s genetic code with another should not be taken lightly, for with this great knowledge comes great responsibility. If not used wisely, this ability of the few… will develop into a disability for the many.

It all started back in the fifties when James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA (DSouza NA). Ever since there has been talk of human and animal cloning. It all seemed out of reach and basically impossible, but in 1997 that all changed when a sheep, named Dolly, was the first ever mammal to be cloned. She was cloned for the purpose of curing disease and research on animal organs for human transplantation (Schaeffer 3). Now that scientists know that it is possible to clone literally anything with DNA, the world has become a rather scary place.

This raises the question: Why is it unnatural to clone humans and animals? Many people say that religion is the underlining factor and god should be the only one with the right to create life. I believe in fate and Mother Nature more so then I do god. I believe that the whole world is mapped out and that we all have a time to live and die. The natural world is a wonderful and powerful environment that I feel would crumble if we began to allow people to take over the remote, so to speak. Personally, I liked the way that things were going until the human race started using technology to change the natural course of fate.

Now look at our world, we are slowly destroying it with over population and these people feel the need to synthetically populate it with this new breed of test tube life. Today they are trying to apply the technique of cloning to different aspects of science and medical problems. Saving endangered species, for example, or allowing infertile parents to have a child of their own. Although these might seem like good ideas, a deeper investigation is really needed here. In early January of this year, Noah, an endangered species of the humpbacked wild guar was born to an ordinary farm cow named Bessie.

The scientists thought they had solved the problem of saving endangered animals, but unfortunately Noah died just two days after his birth from a bacteria infection. These scientists are playing the role of Mother Nature. A cow should only carry her own offspring, not that of an entirely different species. Imagine the confusion of these surrogate mother animals when their baby is unnaturally theirs. Its not only a tragedy that this young guar had to die, but think about all of the trial runs and fetuses that were aborted or put to sleep because of physical or mental deformities.

The subject of animal cloning has provoked debate about the ethics of interfering with nature as well as about the danger of using laboratory means to accomplish what habitat preservation and other conservation measures cannot (Gugliotta A3). Now there is talk that they are going to start cloning animals that have been extinct from ten to thousands of years ago. Scientists are contemplating the possibility of cloning a 20,000-year-old woolly mammoth from a block of ice in northern Siberia and are planning to use an elephant for it is surrogate mother (Gugliotta A3).

This is just crazy, I dont think that I need to remind every one of the movie Jurassic Park. Do we want to move into a world of genetically engineered animals? I definitely do not; these animals became extinct for a reason and who are we to say that it is time for them to roam to earth again? Another type of cloning that is now being investigated is the use of biotechnology to help infertile couples have children. Even Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly and has come out publicly against human cloning, was not trying to help sheep have genetically related children(Thomas 47).

This technique to impregnate infertile couples is basically the same that they are using on the animals. First an egg is removed from a woman and all of its genetics are then stripped. Then the cells from the donor are injected and stimulated by an electrical charge. As a result of this, the cells divide and create embryos. This procedure would only clone the donor cells not the stripped egg. So if people were to do this they would basically be left with a baby that is a replica of one of the parents, or whom ever the donor cell belonged to. This raises the question: would the embryo be the parents child or sibling?

People are also thinking about using this technique to bring loved ones back from the dead (Thomas 50). I do not know how people can even consider cloning their dead mother and then carrying her around in their womb. This all seems like a sick and twisted sci-fi movie, if you ask me. Its not what happens to the parents that disturbs me; it is what happens to the child. Imagine growing up being an exact replica of one of your parents. What a burden for those children, to know that their parents were striving to re-create themselves or someone deceased(McGraw 66).

What will I look like when I am forty? That question will never have to cross the childs mind, all they will have to do is look at the parent they were cloned from or a picture of the person they were supposed to be. We also must think about all of the experimenting that needs to be done in order to make each pregnancy work. Just like Noah, the guar, numerous fetuses were discarded until the right one could be made. It is not ethical to kill so many potential lives of infants to create the one that the parents are striving for.

Our fierce national debate over issues like abortion and euthanasia will seem tame and transparent compared with the questions that human cloning raises (Thomas 48). Although my viewpoint is strictly against cloning, many people believe that it is good idea. The San Diego Zoo geneticist, Oliver Ryder, states that animal cloning will have a great impact on helping to preserve genetic variation. He believes that this technique will add new individuals to the dwindling gene pools of endangered species and help preserve wild life (Gugliotta A3).

When in fact, cloning would divert scarce resources from programs like training rangers or preserving natural habitats. The cost of creating one cloned life could cost up to 15,000 dollars (Begley 59). Some people say that it is worth it and that we need to do what we can to help preserve, and in some cases bring back these animals. Would we really be bringing them back for the better? Most of these animals are becoming extinct, or have been extinct, because their natural habitat is disappearing. The few number of animals that would be cloned, would merely become museum pieces… hanging only in zoos around the world.

What a life for these poor animals, to be resurrected and then kept in a cage (Begley 59). Various people even think that human cloning, or fertility cloning, is a good idea for couples who can not have children. They argue, Why does the law allow people more freedom to destroy a fetus than to create one (Thomas 46)? They are talking about the right to abort an unwanted child, but cloning will result in the death of hundreds of more fetuses. It takes countless test runs before a perfect and defect less child can be created through biotechnology. Is it right to murder all of these embryos to please the parents?

Others argue that cloning is a wonderful thing because they can bring back children that have died from disease or in an accident, this all seems so strange to me. Imagine being born and raised by your parents, then finding out that you are only a replica of child that they had once had. It seems such a profound irony, says Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly, that in trying to make a copy of a child who had died tragically, one of the most likely outcomes is another dead child (Thomas 55). Is it healthy to bring back an imitation of some one they loved? I definitely do not think so; the past is the past.

People have been dealing with deaths of loved ones forever; it is part of life. In a Time and CNN poll about a month ago, groups of people were asked if they thought that it was a good idea to clone an animal, sixty-seven percent answered no. Then they were asked if they thought that human cloning was a good idea, this time ninety percent answered no. In my opinion cloning any thing is wrong. We as the human race have gotten by just fine for centuries with out genetic cloning. Why do we really need it now? We do not; it is just another attention grabbing way for our technology to boom and take over all that is natural.

Scientists are taking medical technology to new heights as they race to map all of the genes in our body. There are about 100,000, in the 23 chromosomes of the human body. In doing this they hope that they can understand the basis of the genes and maybe even develop methods of treating certain genetic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Muscular Dystrophy. The scientists identify the DNA sequence of someone with the disease and then compare it to a person without the disease. By doing this they can recognize which gene is abnormal and causes the disease.

This entire process is called the “Human Genome Project” and is being done in more than 200 laboratories, with more and more labs joining each year. Most of these labs are located in France and the United States. The project started in 1990 and was predicted to take 15 years and cost $3 billion. It costs the United States about $200 million per year. The $200 million per year has only covered about 60% of the annual need. This has created some funding problems for the project. On the brighter side the project has made huge steps in gene mapping and continues to improve every year.

Researchers have successfully located the gene and the DNA sequence that causes Huntington’s Disease. It is located on Chromosome 4. Scientists have created a genetic test, which can determine whether someone carries these genes or DNA pattern. Every child of someone with Huntington’s Disease has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene, which then inevitably leads to the disease. Because of the high amounts of money it costs for treatment of this disease insurance companies see this test as an opportunity to screen potential clients for the probability of such diseases.

This would allow them to deny certain people insurance if they are at high risk. This puts the people being screen in a position where they might not be able to receive treatment for their illnesses because they won’t be able to get insurance. This is morally wrong and also violates the patients right to privacy. This information must be safeguarded from insurance companies so they will not be able to discriminate against someone with “bad genes”. These actions also bring up several ethical questions.

Does genetic testing constitute an invasion of privacy, and would it cause discrimination against those born with genetic deficiencies? Would the parental testing lead people to have more abortions? There are many genetic advancements to come in the future. One area that will benefit from the Human Genome Project is genetic engineering. It too, may have many unethical aspects depending on how the information is used and what is created. Gene Therapy is one aspect that has greatly benefited from the gene mapping done in the Human Genome Project.

It uses genetic engineering to treat genetic disorders. Gene mapping does this by introducing genes into existing cells to prevent or cure diseases. Most of the methods that have been developed are in experimental stages and have not been approved by the FDA. An example of gene therapy is the use of Herpes to treat a brain tumor. Scientists take a Herpes gene and splice it in to a nonvirulent virus. Then the virus is placed in a lab animal to reproduce itself, and after reproduction, it is then injected into the human’s brain tumor.

Because Viruses and liposomes have and uncanny ability to navigate through cell membranes it invades the tumor cells. Thus, the Herpes enzyme will make the tumor vulnerable to drugs used to cure herpes, killing the tumor, the virus and all the animal cells used to manufacture the virus. With these and many other ideas springing out from the medical world, many researchers are optimistic about the results of their research. There is also a direct correlation of the sequencing of genes and the production of drugs to treat certain diseases that have strands of defective genes, such as Alzheimer’s.

If scientists could locate the genes that cause these type of diseases then drugs can be developed to effect the specific location of the gene. The director of the gene therapy program at the University of Southern California, Dr. W French Anderson states, “Twenty years from now, gene therapy will have revolutionized medicine. Virtually every disease will have it as one of its treatments. ” Such an impact would take much longer with trial and error tactics, rather than methodically mapping out the blueprint for the body.

This research is going to continue at a blazing speed. What people need to keep in mind is that the results of this research need to be use to benefit all of society, not just the people who are extremely wealthy. Also, the decision of being tested for certain genetic diseases should lie with that individual. Some people will not be able to handle the fact that they are destine to have a certain disease or genetic flaw. Some states have already enacted law guarding the rights of individuals being genetically tested.

The problem with these laws is that they only cover certain procedures not all of the testing. One solution to stop genetic testing by insurance companies is to make them give everyone in the country the same rate. This way they could not discriminate against people and it would put everyone on a level playing field. Another solution is to keep the information completely confidential. In doing this everyone will get a chance to get the proper treatment for whatever disease that they will inherit.

Once genetic testing is mastered and becomes available for everyone insurance companies will start requiring people to be tested before they are given coverage. The government needs to put the necessary laws in place to stop this from happening. Just because an insurance company does not want to lose money on people who have “bad genes” does not mean they should be banned from coverage. What society and the people involved in Genetic testing, genetic mapping, and genetic engineering must remember is that the information they discover should be used to help mankind, not to profit economically.

Genetic engineering is the alteration of an organism’s DNA, or genetic, material to eliminate undesirable characteristics or to produce desirable new ones. The most controversial form of genetic engineering, by far, is cloning. Cloning is another technology that has evolved out of genetic research. While genetic engineering usually adds or removes just one or two genes, cloning involves reproducing all of an organisms genes (Tagliaferro 21). A clone is an exact genetic replica of an organism, having the same exact DNA makeup.

Understanding what genetic engineering and cloning are is important knowledge, but the most important questions are what the ethical, moral, legal, and biological issues are that deal with genetic engineering and cloning. I will discuss my person opinions about all of the issues of genetic engineering. You cannot forget that this is person opinion and not fact, as the majority of cloning is illegal, and most of these fields of exploration are, well, unexplored. I do believe that genetic engineering should be allowed, to a certain extent. I also believe that cloning should be legal, to a certain extent.

However, you cannot please everyone and though some of these things may be legal, to others they might not be moral. Currently, the trend is to genetically engineer plants for resistance to disease and increased food production; animals for new, advanced, and revolutionary medicines. This should be allowed; however there is always the possibility that the balance of nature could be changed by genetically enhanced plants. Insects will not be a problem for crops anymore; plants with altered genes have already been tested indestructible where normal crops have been eaten away.

Harvesting medicine from animals, such as hemoglobin from pigs, will eventually become unnecessary since we will be able to alter our own genes. Human genetic engineering could very well be the cure for the most widespread and devastating diseases in the world: cancer, HIV, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, you get the idea. If you already have the disease, you can alter the genes necessary to stop the disease. The best thing possible would be, if there were a family history of a certain disease, to alter the gene before the onset of the disease. This form of genetic engineering should definitely be allowed.

Human genetic engineering could also enhance or improve good traits – for instance an extra copy of the human-growth-hormone gene could be added to increase height (Wekesser 155). I dont think that a growth hormone should be allowed, unless someone is a naturally born a dwarf, since there have been reports of nasty side effects from those who have unnecessarily take the hormone. The long-term effects of gene splicing are still unknown. It is a dangerous process, and horrific accidents could occur.

For those who would like to pick and choose their childrens genetic makeup (facial features, build, etc. there could be mutations (cue images of radioactive ants) of any kind. I do not believe that made-to-order humans should be allowed, for then there would be less and less cultural diversity, and people would become more susceptible to certain strains of disease, which, to an extreme extent, could be like giving out nuclear weapons. The good points of heredity would be erased, since we would turn into superhuman genetically enhanced cyborgs. No matter what anyone says, altering human evolution is not a good idea (unless to eliminate certain hereditary diseases).

Strength enhancement for sports and the like should not be allowed, since they share the same dangers as steroids. I do not believe that we should genetically enhance our intelligence, either, but research and exploration of the unused part of our brain (around 90%) would be allowed, also with anything else to forward the knowledge of our surroundings and ourselves. I have created 10 rules and regulations regarding the laws surrounding genetic engineering. This essay is my formal opinion on all issues, moral and lawful, surrounding genetic engineering.

Science is a creature that continues to evolve at a much higher rate than the beings thatgave it birth. The transformation time from tree-shrew, to ape, to human far exceeds the timefrom analytical engine, to calculator, to computer. But science, in the past, has always remaineddistant. It has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, butnever in history will science be able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering willundoubtedly do. With the birth of this new technology, scientific extremists and anti-technologists have risen in arms to block its budding future.

Spreading fear by misinterpretationof facts, they promote their hidden agendas in the halls of the United States congress. Geneticengineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in thefield of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even agingare a thing of the past. By understanding genetic engineering and its history, discovering itspossibilities, and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of fearcovering this remarkable technical miracle can be lifted.

The first step to understanding genetic engineering, and embracing its possibilities forsociety, is to obtain a rough knowledge base of its history and method. The basis for altering theevolutionary process is dependant on the understanding of how individuals pass oncharacteristics to their offspring. Genetics achieved its first foothold on the secrets of nature’sevolutionary process when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first “laws ofheredity. ” Using these laws, scientists studied the characteristics of organisms for most of the next one hundred years following Mendel’s discovery.

These early studies concluded that eachorganism has two sets of character determinants, or genes (Stableford 16). For instance, inregards to eye color, a child could receive one set of genes from his father that were encoded oneblue, and the other brown. The same child could also receive two brown genes from his mother. The conclusion for this inheritance would be the child has a three in four chance of havingbrown eyes, and a one in three chance of having blue eyes (Stableford 16). Genes are transmitted through chromosomes which reside in the nucleus of every livingorganism’s cells.

Each chromosome is made up of fine strands of deoxyribonucleic acids, orDNA. The information carried on the DNA determines the cells function within the organism. Sex cells are the only cells that contain a complete DNA map of the organism, therefore, “thestructure of a DNA molecule or combination of DNA molecules determines the shape, form, and function of the [organism’s] offspring ” (Lewin 1). DNA discovery is attributed to the researchof three scientists, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Dewey Watson in 1951.

Theywere all later accredited with the Nobel Price in physiology and medicine in 1962 (Lewin 1). “The new science of genetic engineering aims to take a dramatic short cut in the slow process of evolution” (Stableford 25). In essence, scientists aim to remove one gene from anorganism’s DNA, and place it into the DNA of another organism. This would create a new DNAstrand, full of new encoded instructions; a strand that would have taken Mother Nature millionsof years of natural selection to develop. Isolating and removing a desired gene from a DNAstrand involves many different tools.

DNA can be broken up by exposing it to ultra-high-frequency sound waves, but this is an extremely inaccurate way of isolating a desirable DNA section (Stableford 26). A more accurate way of DNA splicing is the use of “restrictionenzymes, which are produced by various species of bacteria” (Clarke 1). The restrictionenzymes cut the DNA strand at a particular location called a nucleotide base, which makes up aDNA molecule. Now that the desired portion of the DNA is cut out, it can be joined to another strand of DNA by using enzymes called ligases.

The final important step in the creation of anew DNA strand is giving it the ability to self-replicate. This can be accomplished by usingspecial pieces of DNA, called vectors, that permit the generation of multiple copies of a totalDNA strand and fusing it to the newly created DNA structure. Another newly developed method, called polymerase chain reaction, allows for faster replication of DNA strands and doesnot require the use of vectors (Clarke 1). The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless.

Once the power to control theinstructions, given to a single cell, are mastered anything can be accomplished. For example,insulin can be created and grown in large quantities by using an inexpensive gene manipulationmethod of growing a certain bacteria. This supply of insulin is also not dependant on the supplyof pancreatic tissue from animals. Recombinant factor VIII, the blood clotting agent missing inpeople suffering from hemophilia, can also be created by genetic engineering. Virtually allpeople who were treated with factor VIII before 1985 acquired HIV, and later AIDS.

Beingcompletely pure, the bioengineered version of factor VIII eliminates any possibility of viral infection. Other uses of genetic engineering include creating disease resistant crops, formulatingmilk from cows already containing pharmaceutical compounds, generating vaccines, andaltering livestock traits (Clarke 1). In the not so distant future, genetic engineering will becomea principal player in fighting genetic, bacterial, and viral disease, along with controlling aging,and providing replaceable parts for humans. Medicine has seen many new innovations in its history.

The discovery of anestheticspermitted the birth of modern surgery, while the production of antibiotics in the 1920sminimized the threat from diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera. The creation of serums which build up the bodies immune system to specific infections, before being laid lowwith them, has also enhanced modern medicine greatly (Stableford 59). All of these discoveries,however, will fall under the broad shadow of genetic engineering when it reaches its apex in themedical community. Many people suffer from genetic diseases ranging from thousands of types of cancers, toblood, liver, and lung disorders.

Amazingly, all of these will be able to be treated by geneticengineering, specifically, gene therapy. The basis of gene therapy is to supply a functional geneto cells lacking that particular function, thus correcting the genetic disorder or disease. Thereare two main categories of gene therapy: germ line therapy, or altering of sperm and egg cells,and somatic cell therapy, which is much like an organ transplant. Germ line therapy results in apermanent change for the entire organism, and its future offspring. Unfortunately, germ linetherapy, is not readily in use on humans for ethical reasons.

However, this genetic methodcould, in the future, solve many genetic birth defects such as downs syndrome. Somatic celltherapy deals with the direct treatment of living tissues. Scientists, in a lab, inject the tissueswith the correct, functioning gene and then re-administer them to the patient, correcting theproblem (Clarke 1). Along with altering the cells of living tissues, genetic engineering has also provenextremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. “Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms” (Stableford 34).

Two reasons are evident forthis ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions easily in bacteria, and the transformedbacteria cells can be easily selected out from the untransformed ones. Bacterial bioengineeringhas many uses in our society, it can produce synthetic insulins, a growth hormone for thetreatment of dwarfism and interferons for treatment of cancers and viral diseases (Stableford 34). Throughout the centuries disease has plagued the world, forcing everyone to take part in avirtual “lottery with the agents of death” (Stableford 59).

Whether viral or bacterial in nature,such disease are currently combated with the application of vaccines and antibiotics. These treatments, however, contain many unsolved problems. The difficulty with applying antibioticsto destroy bacteria is that natural selection allows for the mutation of bacteria cells, sometimesresulting in mutant bacterium which is resistant to a particular antibiotic. This nowindestructible bacterial pestilence wages havoc on the human body.

Genetic engineering isconquering this medical dilemma by utilizing diseases that target bacterial organisms. ese diseases are viruses, named bacteriophages, “which can be produced to attack specific disease-causing bacteria” (Stableford 61). Much success has already been obtained by treating animalswith a “phage” designed to attack the E. coli bacteria (Stableford 60). Diseases caused by viruses are much more difficult to control than those caused bybacteria. Viruses are not whole organisms, as bacteria are, and reproduce by hijacking the mechanisms of other cells. Therefore, any treatment designed to stop the virus itself, will alsostop the functioning of its host cell.

A virus invades a host cell by piercing it at a site called a”receptor”. Upon attachment, the virus injects its DNA into the cell, coding it to reproduce moreof the virus. After the virus is replicated millions of times over, the cell bursts and the newviruses are released to continue the cycle. The body’s natural defense against such cell invasionis to release certain proteins, called antigens, which “plug up” the receptor sites on healthy cells. This causes the foreign virus to not have a docking point on the cell.

This process, however, isslow and not effective against a new viral attack. Genetic engineering is improving the body’sdefenses by creating pure antigens, or antibodies, in the lab for injection upon infection with aviral disease. This pure, concentrated antibody halts the symptoms of such a disease until thebodies natural defenses catch up. Future procedures may alter the very DNA of human cells,causing them to produce interferons. These interferons would allow the cell to be abledetermine if a foreign body bonding with it is healthy or a virus.

In effect, every cell would beable to recognize every type of virus and be immune to them all (Stableford 61). Current medical capabilities allow for the transplant of human organs, and evenmechanical portions of some, such as the battery powered pacemaker. Current science can evenre-apply fingers after they have been cut off in accidents, or attach synthetic arms and legs to allow patients to function normally in society. But would not it be incredibly convenient if thehuman body could simply regrow what it needed, such as a new kidney or arm? Geneticengineering can make this a reality.

Currently in the world, a single plant cell can differentiateinto all the components of an original, complex organism. Certain types of salamanders can re-grow lost limbs, and some lizards can shed their tails when attacked and later grow them again. Evidence of regeneration is all around and the science of genetic engineering is slowly masteringits techniques. Regeneration in mammals is essentially a kind of “controlled cancer”, called ablastema. The cancer is deliberately formed at the regeneration site and then converted into a structure of functional tissues.

But before controlling the blastema is possible, “a detailedknowledge of the switching process by means of which the genes in the cell nucleus areselectively activated and deactivated” is needed (Stableford 90). To obtain proof that such aprocedure is possible one only needs to examine an early embryo and realize that it knowswhether to turn itself into an ostrich or a human. After learning the procedure to control and activate such regeneration, genetic engineering will be able to conquer such ailments asParkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other crippling diseases without grafting in new tissues.

Thebroader scope of this technique would allow the re-growth of lost limbs, repairing any damagedorgans internally, and the production of spare organs by growing them externally (Stableford90). Ever since biblical times the lifespan of a human being has been pegged at roughly 70years. But is this number truly finite? In order to uncover the answer, knowledge of the processof aging is needed. A common conception is that the human body contains an internal biologicalclock which continues to tick for about 70 years, then stops.

An alternate “watch” analogy couldbe that the human body contains a certain type of alarm clock, and after so many years, thealarm sounds and deterioration beings. With that frame of thinking, the human body does notbegin to age until a particular switch is tripped. In essence, stopping this process would simplyinvolve a means of never allowing the switch to be tripped. W. Donner Denckla, of the RocheInstitute of Molecular Biology, proposes the alarm clock theory is true. He provides evidencefor this statement by examining the similarities between normal aging and the symptoms of ahormonal deficiency disease associated with the thyroid gland.

Denckla proposes that as we getolder the pituitary gland begins to produce a hormone which blocks the actions of the thyroidhormone, thus causing the body to age and eventually die. If Denckla’s theory is correct,conquering aging would simply be a process of altering the pituitary’s DNA so it would never beallowed to release the aging hormone. In the years to come, genetic engineering may finallydefeat the most unbeatable enemy in the world, time (Stableford 94). The morale and safety questions surrounding genetic engineering currently cause this newscience to be cast in a false light.

Anti-technologists and political extremists spread falseinterpretation of facts coupled with statements that genetic engineering is not natural and defiesthe natural order of things. The morale question of biotechnology can be answered by studyingwhere the evolution of man is, and where it is leading our society. The safety question can be answered by examining current safety precautions in industry, and past safety records of manybioengineering projects already in place. The evolution of man can be broken up into three basic stages. The first, lasting millionsof years, slowly shaped human nature from Homo erectus to Home sapiens.

Natural selectionprovided the means for countless random mutations resulting in the appearance of such humancharacteristics as hands and feet. The second stage, after the full development of the humanbody and mind, saw humans moving from wild foragers to an agriculture based society. Naturalselection received a helping hand as man took advantage of random mutations in nature and bredmore productive species of plants and animals. The most bountiful wheats were collected andre-planted, and the fastest horses were bred with equally faster horses.

Even in our recenthistory the strongest black male slaves were mated with the hardest working female slaves. Thethird stage, still developing today, will not require the chance acquisition of super-mutations innature. Man will be able to create such super-species without the strict limitations imposed by natural selection. By examining the natural slope of this evolution, the third stage is a naturaland inevitable plateau that man will achieve (Stableford 8). This omniscient control of ourworld may seem completely foreign, but the thought of the Egyptians erecting vast pyramidswould have seem strange to Homo erectus as well.

Many claim genetic engineering will cause unseen disasters spiraling our world intochaotic darkness. However, few realize that many safety nets regarding bioengineering arealready in effect. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) was formed under theNational Institute of Health to provide guidelines for research on engineered bacteria forindustrial use. The RAC has also set very restrictive guidelines requiring Federal approval if research involves pathogenicity (the rare ability of a microbe to cause disease) (Davis, Roche69). “It is well established that most natural bacteria do not cause disease.

After many years ofexperimentation, microbiologists have demonstrated that they can engineer bacteria that are just as safe as their natural counterparts” (Davis, Rouche 70). In fact the RAC reports that “there hasnot been a single case of illness or harm caused by recombinant [engineered] bacteria, and theynow are used safely in high school experiments” (Davis, Rouche 69). Scientists have alsodevised other methods of preventing bacteria from escaping their labs, such as modifying thebacteria so that it will die if it is removed from the laboratory environment.

This creates a shieldof complete safety for the outside world. It is also thought that if such bacteria were to escape itwould act like smallpox or anthrax and ravage the land. However, laboratory-created organismsare not as competitive as pathogens. Davis and Roche sum it up in extremely laymen’s terms,”no matter how much Frostban you dump on a field, it’s not going to spread” (70). In factFrostbran, developed by Steven Lindow at the University of California, Berkeley, was sprayed ona test field in 1987 and was proven by a RAC committee to be completely harmless (Thompson104).

Fear of the unknown has slowed the progress of many scientific discoveries in the past. The thought of man flying or stepping on the moon did not come easy to the average citizens ofthe world. But the fact remains, they were accepted and are now an everyday occurrence in ourlives. Genetic engineering too is in its period of fear and misunderstanding, but like every greatdiscovery in history, it will enjoy its time of realization and come into full use in society. Theworld is on the brink of the most exciting step into human evolution ever, and throughknowledge and exploration, should welcome it and its possibilities with open arms.

The Human Genome Project is a worldwide research effort with the goal of analyzing the structure of human DNA and determining the location of the estimated 100,000 human genes. The DNA of a set of model organisms will be studied to provide the information necessary for understanding the functioning of the human genome. The information gathered by the human genome project is expected to be the source book for biomedical science in the twenty-first century and will be of great value to the field of medicine.

The project will help us to understand and eventually treat more than 4,000 genetic diseases that affect mankind. The scientific products of the human genome project will include a resource of genomic maps and DNA sequence information that will provide detailed information about the structure, organization, and characteristics of human DNA, information that constitutes the basic set of inherited “instructions” for the development and functioning of a human being.

The Human Genome Project began in the mid 1980’s and was widely examined within the scientific community and public press through the last half of that decade. In the United States, the Department of Energy (DOE) initially, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) soon after, were the main research agencies within the US government responsible for developing and planning the project. By 1988, the two agencies were working together, an association that was formalized by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to “coordinate research and technical activities related to the human genome”.

The National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR) was established in 1989 to head the human genome project for the NIH. NCHGR is one of twenty-four institutes, centers, or divisions that make up the NIH, the federal government’s main agency for the support of biomedical research. At least sixteen countries have established Human Genome Projects. The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and the National Research Council (NRC) prepared a report describing the plans for the US human genome project and is updated as further advances in the underlying technology occur.

To achieve the scientific goals, which together encompass the human genome project, a number of administrative measures have been put in place. In addition, a newsletter, an electronic bulletin board, a comprehensive administrative data base, and other communications tools are being set up to facilitate communication and tracking of progress. The overall budget needs for the effort are expected to be about $200 million per year for approximately 15 years. Lasers are used in the detection of DNA in many aspects of the project; a very important use is in sorting chromosomes by flow cytometry.

Lasers are also used in confocal fluorescence laser microscopy to excite fluorescently tagged molecules in genome mapping, in addition to other mapping uses. In diagnostic applications, lasers are used with fluorescent probes attached to DNA to light up chromosomes and to create patterns on DNA chips. From the beginning of the human genome project it was clearly recognized that acquisition and use of such genetic knowledge would have momentous involvements for both individuals and society and would pose a number of consequential choices for public and professional deliberation.

As Thomas Lee writes, “the effort underway is unlike anything ever before attempted, if successful, it could lead to our ultimate control of human disease, aging, and death”. Whatever its justification, the human genome project has already inspired society with the hope of “better” babies, and one way to deploy pragmatism in the analysis of genetic engineering is to look at this promise of “better” babies in its social context: parenthood. Parents hope for healthy children and, if they could afford it, make choices (such as choosing parental care) to help “engineer” healthier babies.

Genetic engineering seems in this respect to offer the brightest hope for parents. Through germ-line therapy, disastrous, but genetically discrete diseases, such as Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis could be removed from the DNA of the egg or zygote. Clearly parents would follow the model in choosing to avoid a short, painful life for their children. Another more reasonable fear is that we have not the slightest idea what we are doing and ought to avoid making hasty choices. Hybrid varieties are often impossible to protect from the complexities and dangers of nature.

In the human condition, this is the possibility of making an error and creating a genetically advanced baby who cannot cope with an imperfect world. While much of society reports a willingness to modify DNA for the purpose of heightening intelligence, education about genetics and medicine is still in its beginning. Jonathan Glover argues for a “pragmatism of risks and benefits”, writing that, “The debate on human genetic engineering should become like the on nuclear power: one in which large possible benefits have to be weighed against big problems and great disasters”.

One significant element is the assertion that genetic engineering is radically different from any other kind of human medicine, and constitutes interference in a restricted area, trying to “play God”. As Robert Wright notes, “Biologists and ethicists have by now expended thousands of words warning about slippery slopes, reflecting on Nazi Germany, and warning that a government quest for a super race could begin anew” if genetic engineering ventures “too far”.

In my opinion, I believe that, if and only if, a deadly disease is detected, then the scientists and/or doctors should tap into the DNA of a zygote or egg for testing and absolute knowledge of the steps of the procedure must be present. I do not believe that there should be a genetically advanced child in the world, everyone is created equal and nobody should have their destiny changed for any reason.

Genetic Engineering, history and future Altering the Face of Science. Science is a creature that continues to evolve at a much higher rate than the beings that gave it birth. The transformation time from tree-shrew, to ape, to human far exceeds the time from analytical engine, to calculator, to computer. But science, in the past, has always remained distant. It has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, but never in history will science be able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering will undoubtedly do.

With the birth of this new technology, scientific extremists and anti-technologists have risen in arms to block its budding future. Spreading fear by misinterpretation of facts, they promote their hidden agendas in the halls of the United States congress. Genetic engineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in the field of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past.

By understanding genetic engineering and its history, discovering its possibilities, and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of fear covering this remarkable technical miracle can be lifted. The first step to understanding genetic engineering, and embracing its possibilities for society, is to obtain a rough knowledge base of its history and method. The basis for altering the evolutionary process is dependent on the understanding of how individuals pass on characteristics to their offspring.

Genetics achieved its first foothold on the secrets of nature’s evolutionary process when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first “laws of heredity. ” Using these laws, scientists studied the characteristics of organisms for most of the next one hundred years following Mendel’s discovery. These early studies concluded that each organism has two sets of character determinants, or genes (Stableford 16). For instance, in regards to eye color, a child could receive one set of genes from his father that were encoded one blue, and the other brown.

The same child could also receive two brown genes from his mother. The conclusion for this inheritance would be the child has a three in four chance of having brown eyes, and a one in three chance of having blue eyes (Stableford 16). Genes are transmitted through chromosomes which reside in the nucleus of every living organism’s cells. Each chromosome is made up of fine strands of deoxyribonucleic acids, or DNA. The information carried on the DNA determines the cells function within the organism.

Sex cells are the only cells that contain a complete DNA map of the organism, therefore, “the structure of a DNA molecule or combination of DNA molecules determines the shape, form, and function of the [organism’s] offspring ” (Lewin 1). DNA discovery is attributed to the research of three scientists, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Dewey Watson in 1951. They were all later accredited with the Nobel Price in physiology and medicine in 1962 (Lewin 1). “The new science of genetic engineering aims to take a dramatic short cut in the slow process of evolution” (Stableford 25).

In essence, scientists aim to remove one gene from an organism’s DNA, and place it into the DNA of another organism. This would create a new DNA strand, full of new encoded instructions; a strand that would have taken Mother Nature millions of years of natural selection to develop. Isolating and removing a desired gene from a DNA strand involves many different tools. DNA can be broken up by exposing it to ultra-high-frequency sound waves, but this is an extremely inaccurate way of isolating a desirable DNA section (Stableford 26).

A more accurate way of DNA splicing is the use of “restriction enzymes, which are produced by various species of bacteria” (Clarke 1). The restriction enzymes cut the DNA strand at a particular location called a nucleotide base, which makes up a DNA molecule. Now that the desired portion of the DNA is cut out, it can be joined to another strand of DNA by using enzymes called ligases. The final important step in the creation of a new DNA strand is giving it the ability to self-replicate.

This can be accomplished by using special pieces of DNA, called vectors, that permit the generation of multiple copies of a total DNA strand and fusing it to the newly created DNA structure. Another newly developed method, called polymerase chain reaction, allows for faster replication of DNA strands and does not require the use of vectors (Clarke 1). The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless. Once the power to control the instructions, given to a single cell, are mastered anything can be accomplished.

For example, insulin can be created and grown in large quantities by using an inexpensive gene manipulation method of growing a certain bacteria. This supply of insulin is also not dependent on the supply of pancreatic tissue from animals. Recombinant factor VIII, the blood clotting agent missing in people suffering from hemophilia, can also be created by genetic engineering. Virtually all people who were treated with factor VIII before 1985 acquired HIV, and later AIDS.

Being completely pure, the bioengineered version of factor VIII eliminates any possibility of viral infection. Other uses of genetic engineering include creating disease resistant crops, formulating milk from cows already containing pharmaceutical compounds, generating vaccines, and altering livestock traits (Clarke 1). In the not so distant future, genetic engineering will become a principal player in fighting genetic, bacterial, and viral disease, along with controlling aging, and providing replaceable parts for humans. Medicine has seen many new innovations in its history.

The discovery of anesthetics permitted the birth of modern surgery, while the production of antibiotics in the 1920s minimized the threat from diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera. The creation of serums which build up the bodies immune system to specific infections, before being laid low with them, has also enhanced modern medicine greatly (Stableford 59). All of these discoveries, however, will fall under the broad shadow of genetic engineering when it reaches its apex in the medical community. Many people suffer from genetic diseases ranging from thousands of types of cancers, to blood, liver, and lung disorders.

Amazingly, all of these will be able to be treated by genetic engineering, specifically, gene therapy. The basis of gene therapy is to supply a functional gene to cells lacking that particular function, thus correcting the genetic disorder or disease. There are two main categories of gene therapy: germ line therapy, or altering of sperm and egg cells, and somatic cell therapy, which is much like an organ transplant. Germ line therapy results in a permanent change for the entire organism, and its future offspring. Unfortunately, germ line therapy, is not readily in use on humans for ethical reasons.

However, this genetic method could, in the future, solve many genetic birth defects such as downs syndrome. Somatic cell therapy deals with the direct treatment of living tissues. Scientists, in a lab, inject the tissues with the correct, functioning gene and then re-administer them to the patient, correcting the problem (Clarke 1). Along with altering the cells of living tissues, genetic engineering has also proven extremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. “Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms” (Stableford 34).

Two reasons are evident for this ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions easily in bacteria, and the transformed bacteria cells can be easily selected out from the untransformed ones. Bacterial bioengineering has many uses in our society, it can produce synthetic insulins, a growth hormone for the treatment of dwarfism and interferons for treatment of cancers and viral diseases (Stableford 34). Throughout the centuries disease has plagued the world, forcing everyone to take part in a virtual “lottery with the agents of death” (Stableford 59).

Whether viral or bacterial in nature, such disease are currently combated with the application of vaccines and antibiotics. These treatments, however, contain many unsolved problems. The difficulty with applying antibiotics to destroy bacteria is that natural selection allows for the mutation of bacteria cells, sometimes resulting in mutant bacterium which is resistant to a particular antibiotic. This now indestructible bacterial pestilence wages havoc on the human body.

Genetic engineering is conquering this medical dilemma by utilizing diseases that target bacterial organisms. ese diseases are viruses, named bacteriophages, “which can be produced to attack specific disease-causing bacteria” (Stableford 61). Much success has already been obtained by treating animals with a “phage” designed to attack the E. coli bacteria (Stableford 60). Diseases caused by viruses are much more difficult to control than those caused by bacteria. Viruses are not whole organisms, as bacteria are, and reproduce by hijacking the mechanisms of other cells. Therefore, any treatment designed to stop the virus itself, will also stop the functioning of its host cell.

A virus invades a host cell by piercing it at a site called a “receptor”. Upon attachment, the virus injects its DNA into the cell, coding it to reproduce more of the virus. After the virus is replicated millions of times over, the cell bursts and the new viruses are released to continue the cycle. The body’s natural defense against such cell invasion is to release certain proteins, called antigens, which “plug up” the receptor sites on healthy cells. This causes the foreign virus to not have a docking point on the cell.

This process, however, is slow and not effective against a new viral attack. Genetic engineering is improving the body’s defenses by creating pure antigens, or antibodies, in the lab for injection upon infection with a viral disease. This pure, concentrated antibody halts the symptoms of such a disease until the bodies natural defenses catch up. Future procedures may alter the very DNA of human cells, causing them to produce interferons. These interferons would allow the cell to be able determine if a foreign body bonding with it is healthy or a virus.

In effect, every cell would be able to recognize every type of virus and be immune to them all (Stableford 61). Current medical capabilities allow for the transplant of human organs, and even mechanical portions of some, such as the battery powered pacemaker. Current science can even re-apply fingers after they have been cut off in accidents, or attach synthetic arms and legs to allow patients to function normally in society. But would not it be incredibly convenient if the human body could simply regrow what it needed, such as a new kidney or arm? Genetic engineering can make this a reality.

Currently in the world, a single plant cell can differentiate into all the components of an original, complex organism. Certain types of salamanders can re-grow lost limbs, and some lizards can shed their tails when attacked and later grow them again. Evidence of regeneration is all around and the science of genetic engineering is slowly mastering its techniques. Regeneration in mammals is essentially a kind of “controlled cancer”, called a blastema. The cancer is deliberately formed at the regeneration site and then converted into a structure of functional tissues.

But before controlling the blastema is possible, “a detailed knowledge of the switching process by means of which the genes in the cell nucleus are selectively activated and deactivated” is needed (Stableford 90). To obtain proof that such a procedure is possible one only needs to examine an early embryo and realize that it knows whether to turn itself into an ostrich or a human. After learning the procedure to control and activate such regeneration, genetic engineering will be able to conquer such ailments as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other crippling diseases without grafting in new tissues.

The broader scope of this technique would allow the re-growth of lost limbs, repairing any damaged organs internally, and the production of spare organs by growing them externally (Stableford 90). Ever since biblical times the lifespan of a human being has been pegged at roughly 70 years. But is this number truly finite? In order to uncover the answer, knowledge of the process of aging is needed. A common conception is that the human body contains an internal biological clock which continues to tick for about 70 years, then stops.

An alternate “watch” analogy could be that the human body contains a certain type of alarm clock, and after so many years, the alarm sounds and deterioration beings. With that frame of thinking, the human body does not begin to age until a particular switch is tripped. In essence, stopping this process would simply involve a means of never allowing the switch to be tripped. W. Donner Denckla, of the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, proposes the alarm clock theory is true.

He provides evidence for this statement by examining the similarities between normal aging and the symptoms of a hormonal deficiency disease associated with the thyroid gland. Denckla proposes that as we get older the pituitary gland begins to produce a hormone which blocks the actions of the thyroid hormone, thus causing the body to age and eventually die. If Denckla’s theory is correct, conquering aging would simply be a process of altering the pituitary’s DNA so it would never be allowed to release the aging hormone.

In the years to come, genetic engineering may finally defeat the most unbeatable enemy in the world, time (Stableford 94). The morale and safety questions surrounding genetic engineering currently cause this new science to be cast in a false light. Anti-technologists and political extremists spread false interpretation of facts coupled with statements that genetic engineering is not natural and defies the natural order of things. The morale question of biotechnology can be answered by studying where the evolution of man is, and where it is leading our society.

The safety question can be answered by examining current safety precautions in industry, and past safety records of many bioengineering projects already in place. The evolution of man can be broken up into three basic stages. The first, lasting millions of years, slowly shaped human nature from Homo erectus to Home sapiens. Natural selection provided the means for countless random mutations resulting in the appearance of such human characteristics as hands and feet. The second stage, after the full development of the human body and mind, saw humans moving from wild foragers to an agriculture based society.

Natural selection received a helping hand as man took advantage of random mutations in nature and bred more productive species of plants and animals. The most bountiful wheats were collected and re-planted, and the fastest horses were bred with equally faster horses. Even in our recent history the strongest black male slaves were mated with the hardest working female slaves. The third stage, still developing today, will not require the chance acquisition of super-mutations in nature. Man will be able to create such super-species without the strict limitations imposed by natural selection.

By examining the natural slope of this evolution, the third stage is a natural and inevitable plateau that man will achieve (Stableford 8). This omniscient control of our world may seem completely foreign, but the thought of the Egyptians erecting vast pyramids would have seem strange to Homo erectus as well. Many claim genetic engineering will cause unseen disasters spiraling our world into chaotic darkness. However, few realize that many safety nets regarding bioengineering are already in effect.

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) was formed under the National Institute of Health to provide guidelines for research on engineered bacteria for industrial use. The RAC has also set very restrictive guidelines requiring Federal approval if research involves pathogenicity (the rare ability of a microbe to cause disease) (Davis, Roche 69). “It is well established that most natural bacteria do not cause disease. After many years of experimentation, microbiologists have demonstrated that they can engineer bacteria that are just as safe as their natural counterparts” (Davis, Rouche 70).

In fact the RAC reports that “there has not been a single case of illness or harm caused by recombinant [engineered] bacteria, and they now are used safely in high school experiments” (Davis, Rouche 69). Scientists have also devised other methods of preventing bacteria from escaping their labs, such as modifying the bacteria so that it will die if it is removed from the laboratory environment. This creates a shield of complete safety for the outside world. It is also thought that if such bacteria were to escape it would act like smallpox or anthrax and ravage the land.

However, laboratory-created organisms are not as competitive as pathogens. Davis and Roche sum it up in extremely laymen’s terms, “no matter how much Frostban you dump on a field, it’s not going to spread” (70). In fact Frostbran, developed by Steven Lindow at the University of California, Berkeley, was sprayed on a test field in 1987 and was proven by a RAC committee to be completely harmless (Thompson 104). Fear of the unknown has slowed the progress of many scientific discoveries in the past.

The thought of man flying or stepping on the moon did not come easy to the average citizens of the world. But the fact remains, they were accepted and are now an everyday occurrence in our lives. Genetic engineering too is in its period of fear and misunderstanding, but like every great discovery in history, it will enjoy its time of realization and come into full use in society. The world is on the brink of the most exciting step into human evolution ever, and through knowledge and exploration, should welcome it and its possibilities with open arms.

Hollywood has been showing it to us for years. Frankenstein, The Six Million Dollar Man, Jurassic Park, etc. ; the list goes on. All these movies show man’s instinct to create. This fiction of playing God in recent years is becoming a reality. In 1952, deoxyribonucleic acid was discovered(Dewitt, 1994). The spiral staircase molecule, DNA. DNA is the building block of life. This block holds the code for every aspect of any life on the planet Earth. DNA decides whether one life will be a plant or rhinoceros. DNA also carries the information that tells how smart, creative, bossy, shy, athletic, or any other description you an think of.

The secret code of DNA would prove to be invaluable. This is the reason the Human Genome Project has been started. Scientist around the world are using super computers to crack the code. This 15 year project is predicted to end by the year 2005(Dewitt, 1994). That is only 10 years from now. What does that mean to the average Joe? Well, today we already live with genetically engineered items. The FDA has approved bioengineered tomatoes that ripen without rotting(Dewitt, 1994). Entire herds of cattle are now being injected with a growth hormone(BST) so that hey will produce more milk than ordinary cattle(Dewitt, 1994).

Also drought resistance grass that needs no moving. Scientists will soon be able to collect DNA from endangered species. This DNA could be used to clone more condors, bald eagle, mountain gorillas, and many other animals. Totally extinct animals may be recreated as well, i. e. Jurassic Park. Imagine having your own dodo bird or pet triceratops. Many types of diseases will be cured. Just take out the gene that giving you the problem. Pure panacea. As soon as a baby is born his or hers parents will know everything about him or her.

If they will be artistic. Will she get breast cancer? Will he be tall or short? Is he a genius. Ten years from 2005, these questions won’t even have to be asked. Made to order babies. Made to order babies?!? Is this where we are headed? It’s only a matter of time before a president’s hair clippings are swept up at a barbershop and then used to detect what diseases he has or is susceptible to. The rich may one day be able to obtain immortality by cloning themselves. I couldn’t picture three Donald Trumps all thinking the same. There is even a darker side to this. Governments may decide to create super soldiers. Killing machines with top physical and mental prowess.

This was the dream of Adolf Hitler himself. These genetic alterations may also only be accessible to the rich. Darwin’s rule of evolution, survival of the fittest; if this holds true, anyone with more than 25% melanin in their skin(Afrikans mainly)will be left out. The perfect man and woman will be a reality with genetic engineering. What is the perfect man or woman? That is a question no one knows, but probably someone will soon define. Mankind may get so intelligent that we forget all of our animal instincts. As with all things, there can be a good side and a bad side.

Genetic engineering will have a major effect on our future society. There will be many social changes. It is hard enough today to know whether someone has breast implants or if there hair is real. We might have to guess if a person was born or manufactured at Genes R’ Us(Dewitt, 1994). A greater sense of deception and mistrust will invade the psyche of the masses. Our behavior itself may itself be a manufactured product of some person in a white lab coat. Many believe that the Internet and online services will lead to the elimination of personal privacy. Genetic and bioengineering just maybe the end to human nature.

When future historians look back on the greatest scientific advancements of the 20th century, they will without a doubt focus on only three events: the Apollo Moon landing, the invention of the microprocessor, and possibly the greatest scientific endeavor yet, genomics, the science of identifying genes and how they work in humans. It is possibly not a total coincidence then that two of this centuries greatest advancements have grown out of the same cradle of technology, Silicon Valley.

The first advancement was the invention of the microprocessor, and the second was the invention of the DNA chip, also called the DNA array or biochip. These DNA chips are the newest tools being used in the study of genomics. DNA chips are changing the way researchers analyze the genetic make-up of cells, and will soon render traditional pharmaceutical research obsolete. This allows for whole new generations of drugs that will be made to combat diseases by effecting changes in a their specific genetic design.

Currently the pharmaceutical industry is a very high risk industry in which fewer than one in ten promising drug products ever makes it through the testing phase and onto the shelves at the local pharmacy. The effect is that the production of a new drug is almost like a guessing game that may or may not produce any profit. A Company may have a long list of chemicals that could make possible drugs to treat a specific affliction, but by the time they narrow the list down, and do the necessary research and testing, they may have already spent possibly millions of dollars.

In the end they may not even be left with a viable drug to market. This section is designed to educate the reader on some of the background information needed to understand the nature of DNA chips, as well as to appreciate the benefits the chips could bring to pharmaceutical research. This section consists of the following sections: The Definition of DNA Chips, and The Pharmaceutical Industry Today. The Definition of DNA Chips DNA chips bear an amazing resemblance to microchips.

DNA chips are basically pieces of silicon that are layered with a dense checkerboard-like grid of sites called features [2]. There are typically anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 of these features on any given 2X2cm DNA chip. Attached at each feature are millions of copies of a single segment of DNA, which acts as a DNA probe. Each segment of DNA can range from a few nucleotides, to millions. Nucleotides are the chemical building blocks of DNA. There are only four nucleotides that make up every single strand of DNA in every living creature: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine.

Any genetic material being tested is first labeled with a fluorescent marker. When the marked DNA is applied to the DNA chip, any strands of marked DNA whose nucleotide sequence is complimentary to the sequence of a given DNA probe, will hybridize to the DNA probe and hence “stick” to the chip. Any other marked DNA that does not compliment one of the particular sequences of a probe on the chip, will not stick, and can be washed away. Even DNA segments that partially complement and bond with the DNA of the probe, will be washed away with a 97 percent success rate.

Carefully designed arrays of DNA probes can give the DNA chip the ability to represent an entire genes nucleotide sequence. Such chips can reveal visually, via hundred thousand-dollar read-out displays, whether the DNA sample being tested differs by even a single nucleotide from the standard version. When there may be millions of nucleotides in a given sample, being able to identify one that doesn’t match is a tremendous feat. The technology that spawned the DNA chip became a reality in the early 1990’s, after the commencement of the Human Genome Project (HGP).

The HGP was started in 1990 and is one of the most ambitious endeavors ever undertaken by mankind. It is a government funded project whose two major goals are to identify the 80,000 to 100,000 genes in human DNA, and to determine the nucleotide sequences of the 3 billion or so chemical bases that make-up human DNA. The genes in human DNA largely determine every physical characteristic, and possibly many mental characteristics that define what a human being is. It is our genes that make us different from every other living creature.

The chemical codes that make up these genes are in effect a “book of life. ” The HGP was expected to be completed in the year 2005, but several technological advancements, such as DNA chips, have pushed the expected completion date at least 4 years forward to 2001. The major difference between DNA chips and previous DNA sequencing technologies is not in what the chips do, but in the manner of how it is done. Previous methods of gene sequencing focused on analyzing only one gene at a time, and to analyze one could take several weeks.

By utilizing DNA chip technology, literally thousands of genes can be analyzed and identified simultaneously and all this can be accomplished within days or even hours. Previous technologies would cost thousands of dollars to analyze one gene, but DNA chips can accomplish the same task for a hundred dollars or less per gene. The idea behind DNA chips is that the sequence of a standard DNA sample must be known before a chip can be of use. Once this sequence is identified a chip is tailor-made to search for that particular sequence or sequences, and match it to the DNA of a sample.

It is feasible that within the next decade, after the human genetic design has been analyzed and established, a DNA chip will be made that will have the ability to analyze a few cell samples of an individual, and within hours or possibly even minutes, determine if and exactly how that persons gene make-up differs from the standard human gene make-up. There could possibly be hundreds of genetic differences. Any one of these differences could be the cause of a specific type of ailment or cause a genetic predisposition to a certain type of ailment.

So in effect, this technology gives science the potential ability to analyze the specific genetic make-up of every living creature on earth, by determining how that creatures genetic make-up differs from a standard known genetic make-up. Once all of this information is known, the possibilities for DNA chips, and hence the market for DNA chips, becomes endless. One of the greatest and most obvious markets for the DNA chip will be its use in the pharmaceutical industry. In order to understand the potential benefits of the chips use in the pharmaceutical industry, one must first understand the nature of the industry as it stands today.

For many years, man has been advancing his race through technology. Many things through those were questionable and questionable, but none are close to a certain technology today. And that would be genetic engineering. What exactly is genetic engineering? To put it shortly, it is where scientists splice, alter, and manipulate genes of one thing to how the scientist want it, and even insert that gene into a foreign host. This technological tool is too powerful for us to handle. It is advancing faster than we can expect.

Because of this fact, genetic engineering raises many moral and ethical issues while also showing signs of any dangers. This controversially technology could be looked at two ways, one religiously and the other, scientifically and economically. First, lets talk a religious point of view on genetic engineering. With the current knowledge we have today in genetic engineering, life can easily be created and manipulated to ones liking. How can one Play God by creating and altering life at ones will and not at all feel guilty?

Havent we learned that trying to be on a level as God is a punishable act? Such examples are ones such as the destruction of Babylon. People at that time tried to build a tower high enough o reach God, but it was destroyed, a punishment by God that warned us of what will happen if we tried to get powerful as him. People say that God gave us the knowledge to discover. If this is so, did God give us the knowledge to make the atom bomb so we could wipe out cities and vast lives in an instant? Did God give us the knowledge to make deadly biological weapons to kill each other with?

And did God give us the knowledge to be so advance in warfare today that the world could be destroyed in minutes? God did not give us the knowledge to do these things or for genetic engineering. Man ignorantly chooses his own way and hooses to venture out doing things that are wrong. So who are we to decide what sex a baby should be, how it should look, and what skills it might have? These are just few of the many questions raised in a religious point of view. Next, is the scientific and economical view. One goal of genetic engineering is to make products more efficient.

Things such as crops and other plants are one of the things that have been experimented on and even released into the environment. This is especially dangerous because scientists are not fully sure of what could go wrong. A genetically altered crop or plant could become dominant and take ver all of the its like species and become a problem such as becoming major pests. There have been many cases where non-indigenous plants introduced into a different environment served no use and became major pest problems. But even more dangerous altered plants are genetically altered humans.

The functions of all the genes are not known, only these of a very small percentage of the total genes in organisms such as humans. So why would a scientist take a risk, not knowing the full potential dangers it might cause, such as having an effect on other genes? Privacy is another major concern. What if a sing drop of a ersons blood could reveal all the faults of that person? When will we wake up in a world where everyone has permanent records of what defect will come up in their lifetime and what other things they are susceptible of getting.

What if insurance companies got hold of these records? Could people be refused of health insurance because of these facts? There are many examples where people have been refused of some health care because of genetic screening. Not only that, in a recent poll in Time magazine, a question was asked if a person whose genetic profile shows potential problems pay higher health-insurance rates than someone hose profile does not? Only 8 % answered yes while the majority 88% said no. Obviously even the majority of this nation does not want to be genetically profiled.

One recent controversy that has come up is cloning. With some DNA of an organism, scientists are able to make and exact copy of that organism. A sheep and a monkey have already been successfully cloned, and with the current technology, humans could also be cloned. This raises the most ethical and moral issues because many questions would be raised about the clone. What will be the purpose of making exact human copies? We might even get to a point where humans re cloned for specific duties or even cloned for body parts needed by organ recipients.

Would rights would that clone have? Maybe the same as everyone or maybe not. Again, this is something that we as humans should never experiment with or even attempt. To conclude, genetic engineering is a tool that is too powerful for any man to handle. It is too dangerous and crosses many moral and ethical issues. Do we want to perfect ourselves to immortality? Such things are not meant to be handled by mere mortals such as us. We should let nature take its course as it has been for over many successful generations.

Science is a creature that continues to evolve at a much higher rate than the beings that gave it birth. The transformation time from tree-shrew, to ape, to human far exceeds the time from analytical engine, to calculator, to computer. But science, in the past, has always remained distant. It has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, but never in history will science be able to as deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering will undoubtedly do. With the birth of this new technology, scientific extremists and anti- technologists have risen in arms to block its budding future.

Spreading fear by misinterpretation of facts, they promote their hidden agendas in the halls of the United States congress. Genetic engineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in the field of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past. By understanding genetic engineering and its history, discovering its possibilities, and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of fear covering this remarkable technical miracle can be lifted.

The first step to understanding genetic engineering, and embracing its possibilities for society, is to obtain a rough knowledge base of its history and method. The basis for altering the evolutionary process is dependant on the understanding of how individuals pass on characteristics to their offspring. Genetics achieved its first foothold on the secrets of nature’s evolutionary process when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first “laws of heredity. ” Using these laws, scientists studied the characteristics of organisms for most of the next one hundred years following Mendel’s discovery.

These early studies concluded that each organism has two sets of character determinants, or genes (Stableford 16). For instance, in regards to eye color, a child could receive one set of genes from his father that were encoded one blue, and the other brown. The same child could also receive two brown genes from his mother. The conclusion for this inheritance would be the child has a three in four chance of having brown eyes, and a one in three chance of having blue eyes (Stableford 16). Genes are transmitted through chromosomes which reside in the nucleus of every living organism’s cells.

Each chromosome is made up of fine strands of deoxyribonucleic acids, or DNA. The information carried on the DNA determines the cells function within the organism. Sex cells are the only cells that contain a complete DNA map of the organism, therefore, “the structure of a DNA molecule or combination of DNA molecules determines the shape, form, and function of the [organism’s] offspring (Lewin 1). DNA discovery is attributed to the research of three scientists, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Dewey Watson in 1951.

They were all later accredited with the Nobel Price in physiology and medicine in 1962 (Lewin 1). “The new science of genetic engineering aims to take a dramatic short cut in the slow process of evolution” (Stableford 25). In essence, scientists aim to remove one gene from an organism’s DNA, and place it into the DNA of another organism. This would create a new DNA strand, full of new encoded instructions; a strand that would have taken Mother Nature millions of years of natural selection to develop. Isolating and removing a desired gene from a DNA strand involves many different tools.

DNA can be broken up by exposing it to ultra-high- frequency sound waves, but this is an extremely inaccurate way of isolating a desirable DNA section (Stableford 26). A more accurate way of DNA splicing is the use of “restriction enzymes, which are produced by various species of bacteria” (Clarke 1). The restriction enzymes cut the DNA strand at a particular location called a nucleotide base, which makes up a DNA molecule. Now that the desired portion of the DNA is cut out, it can be joined to another strand of DNA by using enzymes called ligases.

The final important step in the creation of a new DNA strand is giving it the ability to self-replicate. This can be accomplished by using special pieces of DNA, called vectors, that permit the generation of multiple copies of a total DNA strand and fusing it to the newly created DNA structure. Another newly developed method, called polymerase chain reaction, allows for faster replication of DNA strands and does not require the use of vectors (Clarke 1). The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless.

Once the power to control the nstructions, given to a single cell, are mastered anything can be accomplished. For example, insulin can be created and grown in large quantities by using an inexpensive gene manipulation method of growing a certain bacteria. This supply of insulin is also not dependant on the supply of pancreatic tissue from animals. Recombinant factor VIII, the blood clotting agent missing in people suffering from hemophilia, can also be created by genetic engineering. Virtually every person who was treated with factor VIII before 1985 acquired HIV, and later AIDS.

Being completely pure, the bioengineered version of factor VIII eliminates any possibility of viral infection. Other uses of genetic engineering include creating disease resistant crops, formulating milk from cows already containing pharmaceutical compounds, generating vaccines, and altering livestock traits (Clarke 1). In the not so distant future, genetic engineering will become a principal player in fighting genetic, bacterial, and viral disease, along with controlling aging, and providing replaceable parts for humans. Medicine has seen many new innovations in its history.

The discovery of anesthetics permitted the birth of modern surgery, while the production of antibiotics in the 1920s minimized the threat from diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera. The creation of serums which build up the bodys immune system to specific infections, before being laid low with them, has also enhanced modern medicine greatly (Stableford 59). All of these discoveries, however, will fall under the broad shadow of genetic engineering when it reaches its apex in the medical community. Many people suffer from genetic diseases ranging from thousands of types of cancers, to blood, liver, and lung disorders.

Amazingly, all of these will be able to be treated by genetic engineering, specifically, gene therapy. The basis of gene therapy is to supply a functional gene to cells lacking that particular function, thus correcting the genetic disorder or disease. There are two main categories of gene therapy: germ line therapy, or altering of sperm and egg cells, and somatic cell therapy, which is much like an organ transplant. Germ line therapy results in a permanent change for the entire organism, and its future offspring. Unfortunately, germ line therapy is not readily in use on humans for ethical reasons.

However, this genetic method could, in the future, solve many genetic birth defects such as downs syndrome. Somatic cell therapy deals with the direct treatment of living tissues. Scientists, in a lab, inject the tissues with the correct, functioning gene and then re-administer them to the patient, correcting the problem (Clarke 1). Along with altering the cells of living tissues, genetic engineering has also proven xtremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. “Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms” (Stableford 34).

Two reasons are evident for this ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions easily in bacteria, and the transformed bacteria cells can be easily selected out from the untransformed ones. Bacterial bioengineering has many uses in our society; it can produce synthetic insulin, a growth hormone for the treatment of dwarfism and interferon for treatment of cancers and viral diseases (Stableford 34). Throughout the centuries disease has plagued the world, forcing everyone to take part in a virtual “lottery with the agents of death” (Stableford 59).

Whether viral or bacterial in nature, such diseases are currently combated with the application of vaccines and antibiotics. These treatments, however, contain many unsolved problems. The difficulty with applying antibiotics to destroy bacteria is that natural selection allows for the mutation of bacteria cells, sometimes resulting in mutant bacterium which is resistant to a particular antibiotic. This now indestructible bacterial pestilence wages havoc on the human body. Genetic engineering is conquering this medical dilemma by utilizing diseases that target bacterial organisms.

These diseases are viruses, named bacteriophages, “which can be produced to attack specific disease-causing bacteria” (Stableford 61). Much success has already been obtained by treating animals with a “phage” designed to attack the E. coli bacteria (Stableford 60). Diseases caused by viruses are much more difficult to control than those caused by bacteria. Viruses are not whole organisms, as bacteria are, and reproduce by hijacking the mechanisms of other cells. Therefore, any treatment designed to stop the virus itself, will also stop the functioning of its host cell.

A virus invades a host cell by piercing it at a site called a “receptor”. Upon attachment, the virus injects its DNA into the cell, coding it to reproduce more of the virus. After the virus is replicated millions of times over, the cell bursts and the new viruses are released to continue the cycle. The body’s natural defense against such cell invasion is to release certain proteins, called antigens, which “plug up” the receptor sites on healthy cells. This causes the foreign virus to not have a docking point on the cell.

This process, however, is slow and not effective against a new viral attack. Genetic engineering is improving the body’s defenses by creating pure antigens, or antibodies, in the lab for injection upon infection with a viral disease. This pure, concentrated antibody halts the symptoms of such a disease until the bodies natural defenses catch up. Future procedures may alter the very DNA of human cells, causing them to produce interferons. These interferons would allow the cell to be able determine if a foreign body bonding with it is healthy or a virus.

In effect, every cell would be able to recognize every type of virus and be immune to them all (Stableford 61). Current medical capabilities allow for the transplant of human organs, and even mechanical portions of some, such as the battery powered pacemaker. Current science can even re-apply fingers after they have been cut off in accidents, or attach synthetic arms and legs to allow patients to function normally in society. But would not it be incredibly convenient if the human body could simply regrow what it needed, such as a new kidney or arm? Genetic engineering can make this a reality.

Currently in the world, a single plant cell can differentiate into all the components of an original, complex organism. Certain types of salamanders can re-grow lost limbs, and some lizards can shed their tails when attacked and later grow them again. Evidence of regeneration is all around and the science of genetic engineering is slowly mastering its techniques. Regeneration in mammals is essentially a kind of “controlled cancer”, called a blastema. The cancer is deliberately formed at the regeneration site and then converted into a structure of functional tissues.

But before controlling the blastema is possible, “a detailed knowledge of the switching process by means of which the genes in the cell nucleus are selectively activated and deactivated” is needed (Stableford 90). To obtain proof that such a procedure is possible one only needs to examine an early embryo and realize that it knows whether to turn itself into an ostrich or a human. After learning the procedure to control and activate such regeneration, genetic engineering will be able to conquer such ailments as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other crippling diseases without grafting in new tissues.

The broader scope of this technique would allow the re-growth of lost limbs, repairing any damaged organs internally, and the production of spare organs by growing them externally (Stableford 90). Ever since biblical times the lifespan of a human being has been pegged at roughly 70 years. But is this number truly finite? In order to uncover the answer, knowledge of the process of aging is needed. A common conception is that the human body contains an internal biological clock which continues to tick for about 70 years, and then stops.

An alternate “watch” analogy could be that the human body contains a certain type of alarm clock, and after so many years, the alarm sounds and deterioration beings. With that frame of thinking, the human body does not begin to age until a particular switch is tripped. In essence, stopping this process would simply involve a means of never allowing the switch to be tripped. W. Donner Denckla, of the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, proposes the alarm clock theory is true.

He provides evidence for this statement by examining the similarities between normal aging and the symptoms of a hormonal deficiency disease associated with the thyroid gland. Denckla proposes that as we get older the pituitary gland begins to produce a hormone which blocks the actions of the thyroid hormone, thus causing the body to age and eventually die. If Denckla’s theory is correct, conquering aging would simply be a process of altering the pituitary’s DNA so it would never be allowed to release the aging hormone.

In the years to come, genetic engineering may finally defeat the most unbeatable enemy in the world, time (Stableford 94). The morale and safety questions surrounding genetic engineering currently cause this new science to be cast in a false light. Anti-technologists and political extremists spread false interpretation of facts coupled with statements that genetic engineering is not natural and defies the natural order of things. The morale question of biotechnology can be answered by studying where the evolution of man is, and where it is leading our society.

The safety question can be answered by examining current safety precautions in industry, and past safety records of many bioengineering projects already in place. The evolution of man can be broken up into three basic stages. The first lasting millions of years, slowly shaped human nature from Homo erectus to Home sapiens. Natural selection provided the means for countless random mutations resulting in the appearance of such human characteristics as hands and feet. The second stage, after the full development of the human body and mind, saw humans moving from wild foragers to agriculture based society.

Natural selection received a helping hand as man took advantage of random mutations in nature and bred more productive species of plants and animals. The most bountiful wheats were collected and re-planted, and the fastest horses were bred with equally faster horses. Even in our recent history the strongest black male slaves were mated with the hardest working female slaves. The third stage, still developing today, will not require the chance acquisition of super-mutations in nature. Man will be able to create such super-species without the strict limitations imposed by natural selection.

By examining the natural slope of this evolution, the third stage is a natural and inevitable plateau that man will achieve (Stableford 8). This omniscient control of our world may seem completely foreign, but the thought of the Egyptians erecting vast pyramids would have seemed strange to Homo erectus as well. Many claim genetic engineering will cause unseen disasters spiraling our world into chaotic darkness. However, few realize that many safety nets regarding bioengineering are already in effect.

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) was formed under the National Institute of Health to provide guidelines for research on engineered bacteria for industrial use. The RAC has also set very restrictive guidelines requiring Federal approval if research involves pathogenicity (the rare ability of a microbe to cause disease) (Davis, Roche 69). “It is well established that most natural bacteria do not cause disease. After many years of experimentation, microbiologists have demonstrated that they can engineer bacteria that are just as safe as their natural counterparts” (Davis, Rouche 70).

In fact the RAC reports that “there has not been a single case of illness or harm caused by recombinant [engineered] bacteria, and they now are used safely in high school experiments” (Davis, Rouche 69). Scientists have also devised other methods of preventing bacteria from escaping their labs, such as modifying the bacteria so that it will die if it is removed from the laboratory environment. This creates a shield of complete safety for the outside world. It is also thought that if such bacteria were to escape it would act like smallpox or anthrax and ravage the land.

However, laboratory-created organisms are not as competitive as pathogens. Davis and Roche sum it up in extremely laymen’s terms, “no matter how much Frostban you dump on a field, it’s not going to spread” (70). In fact Frostbran, developed by Steven Lindow at the University of California, Berkeley, was sprayed on a test field in 1987 and was proven by a RAC committee to be completely harmless (Thompson 104). Fear of the unknown has slowed the progress of many scientific discoveries in the past.

The thought of man flying or stepping on the moon did not come easy to the average citizens of the world. But the fact remains; they were accepted and are now an everyday occurrence in our lives. Genetic engineering too is in its period of fear and misunderstanding, but like every great discovery in history, it will enjoy its time of realization and come into full use in society. The world is on the brink of the most exciting step into human evolution ever, and through knowledge and exploration, should welcome it and its possibilities with open arms.

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited autosomal recessive disease that exerts its main effects on the digestive system and the lungs. This disease is the most common genetic disorder amongst Caucasians. Cystic fibrosis affects about one in 2,500 people, with one in twenty five being a heterozygote. With the use of antibiotics, the life span of a person afflicted with CF can be extended up to thirty years however, most die before the age of thirteen. 1 Since so many people are affected by this disease, it’s no wonder that CF was the first human genetic disease to be cloned by eneticists.

In this paper, I will be focusing on how the cystic fibrosis gene was discovered while at the same time, discussing the protein defect in the CF gene, the bio-chemical defect associated with CF, and possible treatments of the disease. Finding the Cystic Fibrosis Gene: The classical genetic approach to finding the gene that is responsible for causing a genetic disease has been to first characterize the bio-chemical defect within the gene, then to identify the mutated protein in the gene of interest, and finally to locate the actual gene.

However, this classical pproach proved to be impractical when searching for the CF gene. To find the gene responsible for CF, the principle of “reverse genetics” was applied. Scientists accomplished this by linking the disease to a specific chromosome. After this linkage, they isolated the gene of interest on the chromosome and then tested its product. 2 Before the disease could be linked to a specific chromosome, a marker needed to be found that would always travel with the disease. This marker is known as a Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism or RFLP for short.

RFLP’s are varying base sequences of DNA in different ndividuals which are known to travel with genetic disorders. 3 The RFLP for cystic fibrosis was discovered through the techniques of Somatic Cell Hybridization and through Southern Blot Electrophoresis (gel separation of DNA). By using these techniques, three RFLP’s were discovered for CF; Doc RI, J3. 11, and Met. Utilizing in situ hybridization, scientists discovered the CF gene to be located on the long arm of chromosome number seven.

Soon after identifying these markers, another marker was discovered that segregated more frequently with CF than the other markers. This meant the new marker was closer to the CF gene. At this time, two scientists named Lap-Chu Tsui and Francis Collins were able to isolate probes from the CF interval. They were now able to utilize to powerful technique of chromosome jumping to speed up the time required to isolate the CF gene much faster than if they were to use conventional genetic techniques.

In order to determine the exact location of the CF gene, probes were taken from the nucleotide sequence obtained from chromosome jumping. To get these probes, DNA from a horse, a cow, a chicken, and a mouse were separated using Southern Blot electrophoresis. Four probes were found to bind to all of the vertebrate’s DNA. This meant that the base pairs within the probes discovered contained important information, possibly even the gene. Two of the four probes were ruled out as possibilities because they did not contain open reading frames which are segments of DNA that produce the mRNA responsible for genes.

The Northern Blot electrophoresis technique was then used to distinguish between the two probes still remaining in order to find out which one actually contained the CF gene. This could be accomplished because Northern Blot lectrophoresis utilizes RNA instead of DNA. The RNA of cell types affected with CF, along with the RNA of unaffected cell types were placed on a gel. Probe number two bound to the RNA of affected cell types in the pancreas, colon, and nose, but did not bind to the RNA from non-affected cell types like those of the brain and heart.

Probe number one did not bind exclusively to cell types from CF affected areas like probe number two did. From this evidence, it was determined that probe number two contained the CF gene. While isolating the CF gene and screening the genetic ibrary made from mRNA (cDNA library), it was discovered that probe number two did not hybridize. The chances for hybridization may have been decreased because of the low levels of the CF gene present within the probe. Hybridization chances could also have been decreased because the cDNA used was not made from the correct cell type affected with CF.

The solution to this lack of hybridization was to produce a cDNA library made exclusively from CF affected cells. This new library was isolated from cells in sweat glands. By using this new cDNA library, probe number two was found to hybridize excessively. It was theorized that this success was due to the large amount of the CF gene present in the sweat glands, or the gene itself could have been involved in a large protein family. Nevertheless, the binding of the probe proved the CF gene was present in the specific sequence of nucleotide bases being analyzed.

The isolated gene was proven to be responsible for causing CF by comparing its base pair sequence to the base pair sequence of the same sequence in a non-affected cell. The entire CF cDNA sequence is approximately 6,000 nucleotides long. In those 6,000 n. t. ‘s, three base pairs were found to e missing in affected cells, all three were in exon #10. This deletion results in the loss of a phenylalanine residue and it accounts for seventy percent of the CF mutations.

In addition to this three base pair deletion pattern, up to 200 different mutations have been discovered in the gene accounting for CF, all to varying degrees. The Protein Defect: The Cystic Fibrosis gene is located at 7q31-32 on chromosome number seven and spans about 280 kilo base pairs of genomic DNA. It contains twenty four exons. 4 This gene codes for a protein involved in trans-membrane ion transport alled the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator or CFTR.

The 1,480 amino acid protein structure of CFTR closely resembles the protein structure of the ABC-transporter super family. It is made up of similar halves, each containing a nucleotide-binding fold (NBF), or an ATP-binding complex, and a membrane spanning domain (MSD). The MSD makes up the transmembrane Cl- channels. There is also a Regulatory Domain (R-Domain) that is located mid-protein which separates both halves of the channels. The R-Domain is unique to CFTR and is not found in any other ABC-transporter.

The history of DNA use for forensic cases already spans more than a decade. The first cases into which DNA evidence was brought in were in England. The first case of using DNA-related evidence in Arizona courts was the 1988 murder of Jennifer Wilson by Richard Bible near Flagstaff. Blood found on the back of Bible’s plaid shirt was identified through DNA testing as Jennifer’s blood — with a probability of 14 billion-to-1. Bible was subsequently convicted. This conviction was upheld unanimously by the Arizona Supreme Court.

This together with other legal opinions elsewhere have paved the way for further use of DNA-related evidence in trials. National and international scrutiny of this method has occurred during the OJ Simpson trial in the mid-nineties. While many uncertainties may remain after the trial, the admissibility and validity of DNA evidence in courts has clearly been established. DNA fingerprinting can also be utilized to solve paternity questions. In one case it was even found that the child of whom the father was in dispute was not the biological son of his mother.

It was suspected that an inadvertant swap of kids had occurred in the hospital. In another case, upon in-vitro fertilization sperm vials appeared to have been swapped and a baby could be shown to have a biological father different from the spouse of his mother. Underlying today’s debate was the case of Earl Washington Jr. , who nearly was executed for his conviction in the 1982 rape and murder of a Culpeper woman. Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) pardoned him of that crime in October after new DNA testing found no trace of him at the scene.

Now as another century nears a close, DNA fingerprinting is extending the reach of forensic investigation. Twelve years after first being introduced in the courtroom, genetic profiling is playing an increasingly critical role in a wide range of investigations. Consider this: a DNA analysis of saliva from an envelope flap sealed the circumstantial case against World Trade Center bombing suspect Nidal Ayyad. A year ago, it was the DNA on Monica Lewinskys blue dress that pushed President Clinton to admit an inappropriate relationship with the former White House intern.

And most recently, authorities are using DNA testing to try to tie alleged Railway Killer Angel Maturino Resendiz to several slayings around the country. DNA evidence could help rewrite criminal history. Boston police hope that DNA samples will help them prove once and for all whether Albert DeSalvo really was the Boston Strangler. Convicted Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams and Jeffrey MacDonald the former Green Beret convicted of killing his family in the Fatal Vision murders are also pinning their hopes for freedom on DNA evidence.

They say the genetic testing will prove that theyre innocent. A Powerful Tool Instead of relying solely on intact fingerprints to identify suspects, scientists now use deoxyribonucleic acid, more widely known as DNA, which contains chemical building blocks that vary from person to person, to identify individuals with virtual certainty. The latest technology can create a genetic profile of a suspect using only the saliva left on an envelope or a hair in a victims hand.

The FBI is currently in the process of building a national databank of DNA profiles similar in scope to its national fingerprint file. Although only 14 states are now linked to the national database, the FBI aims to link all the states in a year or so. Already, all 50 states collect DNA samples from convicted sex offenders. Some states collect DNA from all violent convicts, and four others collect samples from all felons. And the science isnt just putting criminals away. So far, DNA evidence has exonerated scores of wrongly convicted defendants.

The Innocence Project, a program run by defense lawyers Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck that challenges convictions with DNA evidence, has helped free more than three dozen people from prison. Warming Cold Cases DNA samples have helped solve crimes that had no other investigative leads. During the last six months in Virginia alone, DNA has helped solve 33 rape and murder cases that previously had no suspects. But the crime-solving potential of DNA is nowhere near being maximized by the states due to limitations in staffing and resources, some say.

We have only scratched the surface in using this application, says Paul Ferrara, the director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science. I foresee, in the next couple years, that police will routinely collect the most minute pieces of evidence from a crime scene, evidence smaller than the naked eye can even detect and see, bring it to a lab and a few hours later walk away with the name of the perpetrator. And the future holds promise of even more effective DNA technology. The San Diego-based company Nanogen is developing a device to allow police to perform DNA analyses right at a crime scene.

A DNA sample can be placed in the device, about the size of a 3 x 5-index card, analyzed on the spot and computer-checked against profiles in a remote database. The device could be in police cars within two years. While the science of DNA profiling is now almost unquestioned even by its opponents how genetic information is collected and stored is the subject of much debate. Many civil libertarians and bioethicists express concern about the widespread collection of genetic information. What will the information be used for? Who will have access to the information?

Does it constitute unreasonable search and seizure? Further, as states grapple with an overwhelming backlog of DNA samples 1. 5 million felons are not yet in the databanks politicians must decide how much resources should be dedicated to fulfilling the goal of a national DNA network. Next up, ABCNEWS. com takes a look at the ethical debate over the role of DNA testing in solving crimes. Close Call From the moment the town of Vincennes, Ind. , learned of the brutal rape and slaying of college student Brook Elizabeth Baker in September 1997, a cloud of suspicion hung over her landlord Mike Nardine.

University students told television reporters that they believed the 45-year-old campus police officer was guilty. A psychic on a nationally-broadcast television talk show told the audience that the landlord did it. The town that has been home to three generations of Nardines became increasingly hostile. Although no charges had been filed against him, Nardine felt the stares and heard the whispers of his neighbors. For almost two years, he waited for police to make an arrest in the case. Nardine cooperated with investigators and even offered his DNA for testing.

But it wasnt until another student was killed that police apprehended a former college student and connected his DNA to the Baker crime scene. Just this month, the former student was arrested, and at least for now, Nardine has been removed from the suspect list. Without the DNA, I always thought there might have been the possibility that I could have been charged, Nardine said. I know people are in prison today who have probably not done the crime but have been blackballed. I was thankful there was DNA. You just dont know what could have happened.

Genes, or chromosomes, are often referred to as “blueprints” which are passed down from generation to generation. From the study of these hereditary materials, scientists have ventured into the recent, and rather controversial, field of genetic engineering. It is described as the “artificial modification of the genetic code of a living organism”, and involves the “manipulation and alteration of inborn characteristics” by humans. Like many other issues, genetic engineering has sparked a heated debate.

Some people believe that it has the potential to become the new “miracle tool” of medicine. “Advances in the field of genetic engineering could mean progress on an unprecedented scale for all civilization” – Gail Dutton To others, this new technology borders on the realm of immorality, and is an omen of the danger to come.

They are firmly convinced that this human intervention into nature is unethical, and will bring about the destruction of mankind. ” the promise of genetic engineering as a tool of medicine is matched only by the threat it would pose to human society and civilization. Ann E. Weiss Rapid advances in medical science have fuelled the question of bioethics.

However, as science takes leaps and bounds towards its goals, ethics are often just learning how to crawl. In fact, it has even suffered major backslides in some cases. Genetic engineering “raises serious ethical questions about the right of human beings to alter life on the planet”. Changing the basic physical traits of an organism can lead to an unprecedented threat to life on the planet”. With such dire consequences, where do we draw the line?

What View Does Science Have on Genetic Engineering? For the first time in history, evolution has taken a backseat to the meddling of humankind with their own genetic makeup. There is an “ongoing realization that humanity is capable of directly shaping its own and other species evolution”. As we ease into the twenty-first century, we realize that genetic engineering is undoubtedly going to have a dramatic effect on our lives. It seems that “with genetic engineering, science has moved from exploring the natural world and its mechanisms to redesigning it.

Now, we must ask ourselves this, will that influence be for better, or for worse? However, even the responses of science differ in this topic. Scientists remain divided in their opinions. Some have warned against the hazards of genetic engineering, while others have dismissed these perils as inconsequential. Two opposing viewpoints, which is right? Lewis Wolpert, professor of biology as applied to medicine at University College London, says that, “There are no ethical issues because you are not doing any harm to anyone.

And indeed, the gist of his statement is staunchly supported by James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner and president of Cold Spring Habour Laboratory. “If we can make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldnt we do it? The biggest ethical problem is not using our knowledge. ” They are both extremely critical of excuses that genetic engineering is a bad idea. Are they absolutely right? Are the predictions of “doomsday” just insubstantial bits of fluff with no proof to support these claims? Are we truly so confident as to proceed with no holds barred?

Both scientists seem not to have the slightest bit of anxiety regarding potential glitches. They have found a fascinating “playground” in genetic engineering, and appears that it is not only a way for them to earn their livelihood, but also gain fame and fortune. Is their attitude towards this serious issue too cavalier or biased? Are they too unclear about the likelihood of threats to civilization? In contrast, two other prominent scientists have displayed their displeasure about genetic engineering. They have made no secret of the rather strong feelings against genetic engineering.

George Wald, Nobel Prize-winning biologist and Harvard professor, wrote: “Recombinant DNA technology [genetic engineering] faces our society with problems unprecedented not only in the history of science, but of life on the Earth. It places in human hands the capacity to redesign living organisms, the products of some three billion years of evolution. It is all too big and is happening too fast. So this, the central problem, remains almost unconsidered. It presents probably the largest ethical problem that science has ever had to face.

Our morality up to now has been to go ahead without restriction to learn all that we can about nature. Restructuring nature was not part of the bargain For going ahead in this direction may be not only unwise but dangerous. Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics. ” Erwin Chargoff, an eminent geneticist who is sometimes called the father of modern microbiology too echoed Walds concerns. He commented: “The principle question to be answered is whether we have the right to put an additional fearful load on generations not yet born.

Our time is cursed with the necessity for feeble men, masquerading as experts, to make enormously far-reaching decisions. Is there anything more far-reaching than the creation of forms of life? You can stop splitting the atom; you can stop visiting the moon; you can stop using aerosols; you may even decide not to kill entire populations by the use of a few bombs. But you cannot recall a new form of life. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard-of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that I could only wish that mine had not been guilty of it.

Have we the right to counteract, irreversibly, the evolutionary wisdom of millions of years, in order to satisfy the ambition and curiosity of a few scientists? This world is given to us on loan. We come and we go; and after a time we leave earth and air and water to others who come after us. My generation, or perhaps the one preceding mine, has been the first to engage, under the leadership of the exact sciences, in a destructive colonial warfare against nature. The future will curse us for it. ” What is the Stand of the Catholic Church?

For some Catholics, their stand on genetic engineering is steadfast, but rigid. For them, “God alone is the master of human life and of its integrity”, and in this belief, their only viable course of though is to be “wary of the potential of genetic engineering for fundamentally altering Gods sacred creation. ” They seem to leave no room for the possibility that there might be a whole new viewpoint to this. In his 1983 address to members of the World Medical Association, Pope John Paul II, as the representative of the Catholic Church, shed some light on the topic from a different perspective.

He did not refute the blatantly true statement that God is the “creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen”, nor did he deny that “medicine is an eminent, essential form of service to mankind. ” However, he hastened to add, “the extraordinary and rapid advance of medical science entails frequent rethinking of its deontology. ” Pope John Paul II touched on three major points: the respect for life, the unity of the human being and the rights of the human being. These key factors contribute to the concept of the fundamental rights of man and the dignity of humankind.

Also, is there the realization that while evolution is inevitable, genetic manipulation poses “a serious question to every individuals moral conscience. ” In his words, “A strictly therapeutic intervention will, in principle, be considered desirable, provided it is directed to the true promotion of the personal well-being of man and does not infringe on his integrity or worsen his conditions of life. Such an intervention, indeed, would fall within the logic of the Christian moral tradition. But here the question returns.

Indeed, it is of great interest to know if an intervention on genetic inheritance that goes beyond the limits of the therapeutic in the strict sense should be regarded likewise as morally acceptable. In particular, this kind of intervention must not infringe on the origin of human life. It must, consequently, respect the fundamental dignity of men and the common biological nature which is at the base of liberty, avoiding manipulations that tend to modify genetic inheritance and to create groups of different men at the risk of causing new cases of marginalization in society.

Moreover, the fundamental attitudes that inspire the interventions of which we are speaking should not flow from a racist and materialist mentality aimed at a human well-being that is, in reality, reductionist. The dignity of man transcends his biological condition. Genetic manipulation becomes arbitrary and unjust when it reduces life to an object; when it forgets that it is dealing with a human subject, capable of intelligence and freedom, worthy of respect whatever may be their limitations. Or when it treats this person in terms of criteria not founded on the integral reality of the human person, at the risk of infringing upon his dignity

Scientific and technical progress, whatever it be, must then maintain the greatest respect for the moral values that constitute a safeguard for the dignity of the human person. And because, in the order of medical values, life is the supreme and the most radical good of man, there must be a fundamental principle: first oppose everything harmful, then seek out and pursue the good. To tell the truth, the expression “genetic manipulation” remains ambiguous and should constitute an object of true moral discernment.

It covers, on the one hand, adventuresome endeavors aimed at promoting I know not what kind of superman and, on the other hand, desirable and salutary interventions aimed at the correction of anomalies such as certain hereditary illnesses. Not to mention, of course, the beneficent applications in the domains of animal and vegetable biology that favor food production. For these last cases, some are beginning to speak, of “genetic surgery,” so as to show more clearly that medicine intervenes not in order to modify nature but to favor its development in its own life, that of the creation, as intended by God. “

Over the past several years Genetics has become a leading link to understanding how our body works. By mapping out deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, scientists plan to find cures for various diseases, develop better, more efficient drugs, grow new organs, evaluate environment hazards, and eventually build a human being. Inside of every single cell in our bodies there are 46 chromosomes that are made up of DNA. Half of your chromosomes are inherited from each parent, DNA is strung along the chromosomes. DNA is the living instructional manual found in all living organisms.

The building block letters of DNA are Adenine, (A), Thymine, (T), Cytosine, C), and Guanine, (G). These are repeated over and over again about 3 billion times in our body alone. DNA can be subdivided into genes, with each gene carrying the information on how to produce a unique protein. Each gene consists of three of the building blocks placed together. Along the stretches of DNA, genes tend to occur in clusters, like cities separated by vast emptiness. When the DNA is collected all together you have a genome.

In the past scientists believed that there was more than 100,000 genes in the human genome, but recent studies by Celera Genomics and many other scientist based eams, have found that the number of genes to be 35,000. (Article #1) This new found information has made some biologists ecstatic and has wounded the pride of others. There are many people who are bothered by the fact that they dont seem to have (many) more than twice as many genes as a fruit fly, said Eric Lander, director of the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research.

It seems to be some kind of affront to human dignity. The 30,000 genes in our body compared to the 13,600 in the fruit fly does seem to raise questions about why we have the abilities to do so much more when we dont ave that many more genes in our genome. Even though all creatures share the same DNA code, some people still believe that there is a step-change between the rest of nature and humans that separates us from them.

The Human Genome Project, starting in the 1980s, is a research program designed to construct a detailed genetic and physical map of the human genome, determine the complete sequence of human DNA, localize 30,000 to 35,000 genes, and perform similar analysis on the genomes of several other organisms. Every species has its own genome. Every individual animal within a species has its very own specific genome. Unless you are an identical twin your genome is different from everyone on earth – and from everyone who has ever lived.

Even though you have your own distinct genome, it is still recognizable as a human genome. Analyzing the human genome will give us insights into why people like the foods they do, why certain people die of heart disease and others of cancer, and why some people are outgoing and others are paralyzed by shyness. We will also be able to know what body shape your children will have, the number of calories they are able to burn off in rest, and the types of sports they will excel at and enjoy. Studying the genome can related to a number of things, you can study the whole genome, or only a small part.

You can study the sequence, or function of a specific gene. We are able to observe what happens when something goes wrong with a gene, and how it affects our life and body. Certain diseases are cause by mutations in a particular gene such as Blindness, cancers, bowl disorders, Leprosy, arthritis, Turners syndrome, Down Syndrome, and many other types of diseases. These genetic diseases are caused by changes (mutations) in the DNA sequence of a gene or a set of genes. This can happen at ny given time, from when we are a single cell to when we are close to 100 or older.

Some scientists believe that there are specific disorders genes that cause the disease, but it is a mutation that causes the normal genes to operate improperly. So to clarify all the mishap it is better to say that there are mutated genes that cause genetic disorders. In some diseases such as Down Syndrome and Turners Syndrome, entire chromosomes, or large segments of them, are missing, duplicated, or otherwise altered. Single-Gene disorders result when a mutation causes the product of a single gene to be altered or missing.

Sickle-cell Anemia is an example of this type of disorder. Mutations in the beta-globin gene cause the blood cells to become distorted and take on a sickle shape. This makes traveling through the blood vessels hard and they begin to clog in the narrow passages, causing various problems within the body depending on where the clog is at. Multifactorial disorders result from mutations in multiple genes, often coupled with environmental causes. The complicated bases of these diseases make them strenuous to study and treat.

Some examples of this type of disorder are heart disorders, diabetes, and cancers. Certain kinds of thyroid cancers are accumulated by malfunctioning genes, such as Familial papillary thyroid cancer, and Medullary thyroid cancer (Article #5). Cancer is caused by certain changes in our DNA sequence. But cancer is not developed by one mutated gene, its the accumulation of many defected genes. This can happen through inheritance of mutations or addition of new mutations during the life span of an organism.

Additions of new mutations can come from exposure to the sun, UV rays, infection by certain viruses, spontaneous mutations and changes in copying the DNA during the aging process. The genetic basis of cancer is possible by the cancerous cell dividing at inappropriate times. This could mean that the cells either do not receive the signal to stop dividing or they do not require outside signals to start dividing, so they divide when they feel like it. When cancerous cells come in contact with other neighboring cells they do not stop dividing like normal cells do, but they pile up and form a tumor.

Cancerous cells also have the ability to invade healthy tissue, leading to the spread of cancer throughout the body. Scientists were able to pin down the exact gene that is responsible for prompting eoples internal wake-up alarms. A mutation in this gene can cause the person to wake up at very inappropriate times and causes them to become tried in the middle of the afternoon. The mutation was found in the human Per2 gene on Chromosome 2. This is common to many people the statistics show 1 in every 10,000 all the way up to 1 in every 100,000 people.

There are a large quantity of people that dont realize that it is a disorder so they never come in for treatment (Article #3) Colourblindness is another of the many generic disorders. It is found in the X chromosomes which is passed down from the female, never the male. If a woman with the gene that entitles Colourblindness has a girl, the X chromosome of the baby will cancel out the colourblind chromosome (X) a majority of the time. There is a slim chance that when the X chromosome of the baby is weak the colourblind X will prevail and the girl will be born colourblind.

Females are the only carriers of this generic trait, very rarely does a female get the trait. If that same woman were to have a boy, the X chromosome will predominate the Y chromosome and the boy will indefinitely be colourblind. The ratios of this disease are very different for men and women, 1 in 12 for men, and 1 in 250 for omen. Inherited genetic mutations arise about twice as often in men as in women (Article #6) Scientists have found that a retinal gene appears to be responsible for at least some of the cases of macular degeneration, or blindness.

The gene, which plays a role in the metabolization of a fatty acid called DHA, has become defective and does not perform its assignment accordingly. This suggests that people with the defected genes may have trouble using the fatty acid in normal cell mechanisms. This leads to the deterioration of the macula, a central part of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. The loss of this ision limits what a person can do, such as driving which is no longer acceptable, they have trouble reading, and they lose all peripheral vision. This defective gene is past down from generation to generation.

To help cut back on the problems that can be caused by eating foods that are high in DHA, such as salmon, shellfish, eggs, tuna, liver, and many more (Article #2) The entire genetic sequence of the disease labeled Leprosy has been deciphered. This shows that with genetic sequencing of different organisms, such as the Leprosy Bacterium, is extremely helpful in finding new, efficient treatments and drugs. In the case f Leprosy it also help scientists to calculate how to grow the bacterium in a laboratory which was impossible up to now (Article #8).

Ankylosing Spondylitus, or spinal arthritis is also formed from gene mutation. The gene attacks the spine making it rigid as a poker, the extreme case, to just not allowing to move easily, the moderate case. With learning how the gene is able to make this happen we will be able to treat this, and maybe even cure it (Article #7). Other disorders are not caused by malfunctioning genes or abnormal chromosomes, but certain viruses can infect a gene and that gene will multiply with that nfections written in it. AIDS is a worthy example of this type of disorder or disease.

AIDS is cause by an infection with the HIV virus. The HIV virus infects an organism incorporating its own DNA into the chromosomes of the infected cell. When this cell divides, the viral DNA is inherited by all the daughter cells of the infected cell. So in a way the infected cell now has a genetic disorder, caused by the introduction of a new DNA into its chromosomes. The viral DNA will not transfer onto the next generation because the sperm and egg cells of the organism are not daughters of the infected cell. Scientists have recently been able to manipulate a skin cell to turn into heart tissue.

This can be radically helpful in the production of islet cells that produce insulin needed for diabetes. The scientists turned the clock back on the skin cells to produce stem cells, which have the ability to develop into any desired type of cell, from nerve to liver to muscle. Then they manipulate the stem cell to become a heart tissue. This could be a breakthrough for diabetic people, eliminating the daily insulin shots, and making live just a little it easier (Article #18). Tests with possible cures are been research continually, such as with tobacco plants that contain a human gene.

The gene interleukin10 can be massed produced to help treat bowl disorders. Using genes from other living organisms are growing more common in science (Article #4). To stop the wide shortage of organ transplants needed, scientists have started researching humanized pig organs. The birth of a litter of genetically modified pigs have started this research. Each of the pigs has a marker gene introduced into its genetic code. This produces a knock-out pig, where scientists will knock out the gene that leads o the human immune system.

This will eliminate the rejection of the pigs organs when placed in the human body. The process is called Xenotransplants, and it could start in as little as 4 years (Article #19) In the same sense scientists have been able to turn a plants leaves into petals, allowing nurseries to produce plants that bear flowers where leaves were. This is possible by five genes that are manipulated, either by traditional breeding, or by genetic engineering. Breeders will be able to make colourful double flowers in which stamens and leaves grow into petals and enhance the fragrance.

This not only could help the nurseries but the drug industry as well, by allowing them to grow greater quantities of therapeutic chemicals that come from flowers (Article #17). Additional traits can be discovered by sequencing the genes. Not only will scientists be able to see whether or not you have a fatal disease, but they will be able to envision what type of body type your child will have, what kind food they will have a taste for and whether they will be outgoing or paralyzed with fear about leaving the house. There are innumerable amount of traits that we will be able to see when we look at a ersons genes.

What kind of sports they will like, whether they will be overweight or underweight, how many calories they burn at rest, and whether they are a psychopathic killer (Article #9). We will be able to know ahead of time what kind of lives our children will lead, in some ways this is a good thing because it will prepare us for what type of parenting we have to do. But in other ways if we find out what likes and dislike our child will have we will have the choice, if we want this child or not, this exact thought raises many questions about the morality of genetic sequencing.

Scientists have just encountered the gene that controls the height of humans also governs life and death, meaning that short people are genetically programmed to live longer than tall people. Using Nematobe C. Elegan, worm-like creatures, scientists eliminated these genes and the result is either mutant giant, or dwarf worms. They discovered that the genes that were knock out which produce growth hormones, also influence life expectancy. The lower levels of growth hormones, the longer the life expectancy.

Even though it was only tested on C. Elegans, human have the same nsulin-based growth system, so it applied to humans as well (Articles #20,25). A discovery has been made that there is a gene that explains why moderate drinking can prevent heart attacks. This gene, or variants of it, makes the body break down alcohol very slowly which raises the levels of heart-protecting good cholesterol in the blood. Drinkers with this gene were found to have a sharply lower risks of heart attacks than those that dispense alcohol at a faster rate.

The gene produces enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down alcohol. The gene either breaks down the alcohol uickly or slowly. You inherit one of the genes from each parent, so you can have two fast genes, two slow genes, or one of each. Those who have two slow genes and average one drink a day have a 85% less risk of a heart attack than those who have two fast genes and hardly drink. With conditions such as obesity, overdose of alcohol, smoking, and a history of heart illness the risk was still 35% lower (Article #16).

Jurrassic Park the movie directed by Steve Speilberg, based on a book by Michael Crichton, has raised many questions about the correctness of taking DNA found in fossils and decoding it. Geologists right now are extracting the DNA from prehistoric bugs stomach. If the chance that the DNA turns out to be belonging to a dinosaur they want to decoded it and possibly clone a dinosaur. Cloning is made from a single adult cell joined with an egg cell, the genes of which have been removed, so all the geologists need from the DNA of a dinosaur is the adult cell, and an egg cell.

If the geologists decide not to clone the dinosaurs then they will use the DNA to find out a little more about dinosaurs and the environment in which they lived (Article #10). Apart from just studying the DNA and sequencing the genes, the knowledge of the DNA can be used in fighting crimes. Any type of body fluid and cells can be used to find out who was present at the scene of a crime. Evidence such as sperm, blood, pubic hair, skin cells, and saliva can be taken into a lab and studied to find out who exactly it belongs to. This is accomplished by searching a computer from a DNA Databank.

A DNA Databank keeps records on the DNA of everyone they possibly can, for use in such situations as a crime scene investigation. Once the investigators have a list of possible people that are suspected, they now go and get a swabbing of the inside of their mouths or further testing. People have rejected this, calling it an invasion of privacy. They believe that if employers were to be able to have access to the DNA Databank they would know all about their employee including diseases or disorders, characteristics and traits.

Meaning that if your employers looks at your DNA and finds that you have a history of heart disease in your genes and they believe that you are not fit for the job they can fire you on that account. This is a downfall of keeping DNA files on hand, they can be used against people, not just to help them (Articles #11,12,13,14,15) Scientists have not just been mapping the code of human and animals, but of plants as well. They have been able to genetically modify plants to help them survive longer and produce better food, flowers, or fragrance depending on what they want enhanced.

Genetically Modified foods have become more common in recent years. It was mostly grains that have been engineered with genes from non-grain species that make the plants resist insects or tolerate pesticides. So a farmer can spray his crops with a pesticide and have it kill everything in its field except his harvest. There are some problems with this, uch as allergies in humans. Scientists have yet to figure out whether or not people can develop allergies towards GMOs, but some people dont want to take the chance.

The pesticide resistant plants could jump to wild plants, creating super-weeds or could harm valuable insects by making their food unfit to eat, such as the Monarch butterfly. The Genetically Modified Atlantic and Pacific salmon are growing faster than normal salmon, if the super-salmon were to escape from the production plantations, they could mate with normal salmon and corrupt their whole genetic pool. There is also problems with patent enetically modified plants, if a person suspects that his neighbor was stealing his super-seeds, the only way to prove hes not is to spray his field.

If the crop dies then he is not stealing the crops, but he lost all that years harvest. If the crop lives, then the company can sue the neighbor. So you can see that there is a number of problems that could arise with releasing the GMOs. Some Health officials dont agree with Genetically Modified foods, claiming that it is unhealthy and dangerous to humans and the environment, if not properly controlled. Right now in Canada they are looking for better ways to control GMOs and the sale of them.

Officials believe that their will be a lot of problems with GMOs and how people will react to them being on the shelf, they think that there will be destruction of fields and food products just like the reaction in Europe last year. (Articles #21,22,24) After figuring out the genome of humans there is still Protenome, a complete listing of the 250,000 or so proteins that the 35,000 genes are capable of making. Proteins can vary in health and disease, and the long chains of amino acids do not string out but curl up on themselves in complex 3D shapes, making it indefinitely harder to break the ode.

Most of biology happens at the protein level, not the DNA level, Dr. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics points out. Scientists not only have to figure out what the listing of proteins is but how they change in disease and how they fold. This is dubbed the Greatest unsolved problem in biology. (Article #27) As you can see there is still a long way to go in finding out everything there is to know about Genetics. But when we do find out everything about Genetics and the human body, there is nothing left to the imagination, and a part of that will be sorely missed.

Science is a creature that continues to evolve at a much higher rate than the beings that gave it birth. The transformation time from tree-shrew, to ape, to human far exceeds the time from an analytical engine, to a calculator, to a computer. However, science, in the past, has always remained distant. It has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, but never in history has science be able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering will undoubtedly do. With the birth of this new technology, scientific extremists and anti-technologists have risen in arms to block its budding future.

Spreading fear by misinterpretation of facts, they promote their hidden agendas in the halls of the United States congress. They fear that it is unsafe; however, genetic engineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in the field of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past. By understanding genetic engineering and its history, discovering its possibilities, and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of fear covering this remarkable technical miracle can be lifted.

The first step to understanding genetic engineering and embracing its possibilities for society is to obtain a rough knowledge base of its history and method. The basis for altering the evolutionary process is dependant on the understanding of how individuals pass on characteristics to their offspring. Genetics achieved its first foothold on the secrets of nature’s evolutionary process when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first laws of heredity. Using these laws, scientists studied the characteristics of organisms for most of the next one hundred years following Mendel’s discovery.

These early studies concluded that each organism has two sets of character determinants, or genes (Stableford 16). For instance, in regards to eye color, a child could receive one set of genes from his or her father that were encoded one blue, and the other brown. The same child could also receive two brown genes from his or her mother. The conclusion for this inheritance would be the child has a three in four chance of having brown eyes, and a one in three chance of having blue eyes (Stableford 16). Genes are transmitted through chromosomes which reside in the nucleus of every living organism’s cells.

Each chromosome is made up of fine strands of deoxyribonucleic acids, or DNA. The information carried on the DNA determines the cells function within the organism. Sex cells are the only cells that contain a complete DNA map of the organism, therefore, the structure of a DNA molecule or combination of DNA molecules determines the shape, form, and function of the [organism’s] offspring (Lewin 1). DNA discovery is attributed to the research of three scientists, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Dewey Watson in 1951.

They were all later accredited with the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1962 (Lewin 1). The new science of genetic engineering aims to take a dramatic short cut in the slow process of evolution (Stableford 25). In essence, scientists aim to remove one gene from an organism’s DNA, and place it into the DNA of another organism. This would create a new DNA strand, full of new encoded instructions; a strand that would have taken Mother Nature millions of years of natural selection to develop. Isolating and removing a desired gene from a DNA strand involves many different tools.

DNA can be broken up by exposing it to ultra-highfrequency sound waves, but this is an extremely inaccurate way of isolating a desirable DNA section (Stableford 26). A more accurate way of DNA splicing is the use of restriction enzymes, which are produced by various species of bacteria (Clarke 1). The restriction enzymes cut the DNA strand at a particular location called a nucleotide base, which makes up a DNA molecule. Now that the desired portion of the DNA is cut out, it can be joined to anothe strand of DNA by using enzymes called ligases.

The final important step in the creation of a new DNA strand is giving it the ability to self-replicate. This can be accomplished by using special pieces of DNA, called vectors, that permit the generation of multiple copies of a total DNA strand and fusing it to the newly created DNA structure. Another newly developed method, called polymerase chain reaction, allows for faster replication of DNA strands and does not require the use of vectors (Clarke 1). Viewpoint 1 The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless.

Once the power to control the instructions, given to a single cell, are mastered anything can be accomplished. For example, insulin can be created and grown in large quantities by using an inexpensive gene manipulation method of growing a certain bacteria. This supply of insulin is also not dependant on the supply of pancreatic tissue from animals. Recombinant factor VIII, the blood clotting agent missing in people suffering from hemophilia, can also be created by genetic engineering. Virtually all people who were treated with factor VIII before 1985 acquired HIV, and later AIDS.

Being completely pure, the bioengineered version of factor VIII eliminates any possibility of viral infection. Other uses of genetic engineering include creating disease resistant crops, formulating milk from cows already containing pharmaceutical compounds, generating vaccines, and altering livestock traits (Clarke 1). In the not so distant future, genetic engineering will become a principal player in fighting genetic, bacterial, and viral disease, along with controlling aging, and providing replaceable parts for humans. Medicine has seen many new innovations in its history.

The discovery of anesthetics permitted the birth of modern surgery, while the production of antibiotics in the 1920s minimized the threat from diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera. The creation of serums which build up the bodies immune system to specific infections, before being laid low with them, has also enhanced modern medicine greatly (Stableford 59). All of these discoveries will fall under the broad shadow of genetic engineering when it reaches its apex in the medical community. Many people suffer from genetic diseases ranging from thousands of types of cancers, to blood, liver, and lung disorders.

Amazingly, all of these will be able to be treated by genetic engineering, specifically, gene therapy. The basis of gene therapy is to supply a functional gene to cells lacking that particular function, thus correcting the genetic disorder or disease. There are two main categories of gene therapy: germ line therapy, or altering of sperm and egg cells, and somatic cell therapy, which is much like an organ transplant. Germ line therapy results in a permanent change for the entire organism, and its future offspring. Unfortunately, germ line therapy, is not readily in use on humans for ethical reasons.

However, this genetic method could, in the future, solve many genetic birth defects such as downs syndrome. Somatic cell therapy deals with the direct treatment of living tissues. Scientists, in a lab, inject the tissues with the correct, functioning gene and then re-administer them to the patient, correcting the problem (Clarke 1). Along with altering the cells of living tissues, genetic engineering has also proven extremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms (Stableford 34).

Two reasons are evident for this ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions easily in bacteria, and the transformed bacteria cells can be easily selected out from the untransformed ones. Bacterial bioengineering has many uses in our society, it can produce synthetic insulins, a growth hormone for the treatment of dwarfism and interferons for treatment of cancers and viral diseases (Stableford 34). Throughout the centuries disease has plagued the world, forcing everyone to take part in a virtual lottery with the agents of death (Stableford 59).

Whether viral or bacterial in nature, such disease are currently combated with the application of vaccines and antibiotics. These treatments, however, contain many unsolved problems. The difficulty with applying antibiotics to destroy bacteria is that natural selection allows for the mutation of bacteria cells, sometimes resulting in mutant bacterium which is resistant to a particular antibiotic. This indestructible bacterial pestilence wages havoc on the human body. Genetic engineering is conquering this medical dilemma by utilizing diseases that target bacterial organisms.

These diseases are viruses, named bacteriophages, which can be produced to attack specific disease-causing bacteria (Stableford 61). Much success has already been obtained by treating animals with a phage designed to attack the E. coli bacteria (Stableford 60). Diseases caused by viruses are much more difficult to control than those caused by bacteria. Viruses are not whole organisms, as bacteria are, and reproduce by hijacking the mechanisms of other cells. Therefore, any treatment designed to stop the virus itself, will also stop the functioning of its host cell.

A virus invades a host cell by piercing it at a site called a receptor. Upon attachment, the virus injects its DNA into the cell, coding it to reproduce more of the virus. After the virus is replicated millions of times over, the cell bursts and the new viruses are released to continue the cycle. The body’s natural defense against such cell invasion is to release certain proteins, called antigens, which plug up the receptor sites on healthy cells. This causes the foreign virus to not have a docking point on the cell. This process, however, is slow and not effective against a new viral attack.

Genetic engineering is improving the body’s defenses by creating pure antigens, or antibodies, in the lab for injection upon infection with a viral disease. This pure, concentrated antibody halts the symptoms of such a disease until the bodies natural defenses catch up. Future procedures may alter the very DNA of human cells, causing them to produce interferons. These interferons would allow the cell to be able determine if a foreign body bonding with it is healthy or a virus. In effect, every cell would be able to recognize every type of virus and be immune to them all (Stableford 61).

Current medical capabilities allow for the transplant of human organs, and even mechanical portions of some, such as the battery powered pacemaker. Current science can even re-apply fingers after they have been cut off in accidents, or attach synthetic arms and legs to allow patients to function normally in society. But would not it be incredibly convenient if the human body could simply regrow what it needed, such as a new kidney or arm? Genetic engineering can make this a reality. Currently in the world, a single plant cell can differentiate into all the components of an original, complex organism.

Certain types of salamanders can re-grow lost limbs, and some lizards can shed their tails when attacked and later grow them again. Ever of functional tissues. But before controlling the blastema is possible, a detailed knowledge of the switching process by means of which the genes in the cell nucleus are selectively activated and deactivated is needed (Stableford 90). To obtain proof that such a procedure is possible one only needs to examine an early embryo and realize that it knows whether to turn itself into an ostrich or a human.

After learning the procedure to control and activate regeneration, genetic engineering will be able to conquer such ailments as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other crippling diseases without grafting in new tissues. The broader scope of this technique would allow the re-growth of lost limbs, repairing any damaged organs internally, and the production of spare organs by growing them externally (Stableford 90). Viewpoint 2 Ever since biblical times the lifespan of a human being has been pegged at roughly 70 years. But is this number truly finite? In order to uncover the answer, knowledge of the process of aging is needed.

A common conception is that the human body contains an internal biological clock which continues to tick for about 70 years, then stops. An alternate watch analogy could be that the human body contains a certain type of alarm clock, and after so many years, the alarm sounds and deterioration beings. With that frame of thinking, the human body does not begin to age until a particular switch is tripped. In essence, stopping this process would simply involve a means of never allowing the switch to be tripped. W. Donner Denckla, of the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, proposes that the alarm clock theory is true.

He provides evidencefor this statement by examining the similarities between normal aging and the symptoms of ahormonal deficiency disease associated with the thyroid gland. Denckla proposes that as we get older the pituitary gland begins to produce a hormone which blocks the actions of the thyroid hormone, thus causing the body to age and eventually die. If Denckla’s theory is correct, conquering aging would simply be a process of altering the pituitary’s DNA so it would never be allowed to release the aging hormone. In the years to come, genetic engineering may finally defeat the most unbeatable enemy in the world, time (Stableford 94).

The morale and safety questions surrounding genetic engineering currently cause this new science to be cast in a false light. Anti-technologists and political extremists spread incorrect interpretation of facts coupled with statements that genetic engineering is not natural and defies the order of things. The morale question of biotechnology can be answered by studying where the evolution of man is, and where it is leading our society. The safety question can be answered by examining current safety precautions in industry, and past safety records of many bioengineering projects already in place.

The evolution of man can be broken up into three basic stages. The first, lasting millions of years, slowly shaped human nature from Homo erectus to Home sapiens. Natural selection provided the means for countless random mutations resulting in the appearance of such human characteristics as hands and feet. The second stage, after the full development of the human body and mind, saw humans moving from wild foragers to an agriculture based society. Natural selection received a helping hand as man took advantage of random mutations in nature and bred more productive species of plants and animals.

The most bountiful wheats were collected and re-planted, and the fastest horses were bred with equally faster horses. Even in our recent history the strongest black male slaves were mated with the hardest working female slaves. The third stage, still developing today, will not require the chance acquisition of super-mutations in nature. Man will be able to create such super-species without the strict limitations imposed by natural selection. By examining the natural slope of this evolution, the third stage is a natural and inevitable plateau that man will achieve (Stableford 8).

This omniscient control of our world may seem completely foreign, but the thought of the Egyptians erecting vast pyramids would have seem strange to Homo erectus as well. Conclusion Many claim genetic engineering will cause unseen disasters spiraling our world into chaotic darkness. However, few realize that many safety nets regarding bioengineering are already in effect. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) was formed under the National Institute of Health to provide guidelines for research on engineered bacteria for industrial use.

The RAC has also set very restrictive guidelines requiring Federal approval if research involves pathogenicity (the rare ability of a microbe to cause disease) (Davis, Roche 69). It is well established that most natural bacteria do not cause disease. After many years of experimentation, microbiologists have demonstrated that they can engineer bacteria that are idence of regeneration is all around and the science of genetic engineering is slowly mastering its techniques. Regeneration in mammals is essentially a kind of controlled cancer, called a blastema.

The cancer is deliberately formed at the regeneration site and then converted into a structure just as safe as their natural counterparts (Davis and Rouche 70). In fact the RAC reports that there has not been a single case of illness or harm caused by recombinant [engineered] bacteria, and they now are used safely in high school experiments (Davis and Rouche 69). Scientists have also devised other methods of preventing bacteria from escaping their labs, such as modifying the bacteria so that it will die if it is removed from the laboratory environment. This creates a shield of complete safety for the outside world.

It is also thought that if such bacteria were to escape it would act like smallpox or anthrax and ravage the land. However, laboratory-created organisms are not as competitive as pathogens. Davis and Roche sum it up in extremely laymen’s terms, no matter how much Frostban you dump on a field, it’s not going to spread (70). In fact Frostbran, developed by Steven Lindow at the University of California, Berkeley, was sprayed on a test field in 1987 and was proven by a RAC committee to be completely harmless (Thompson 104). Fear of the unknown has slowed the progress of many scientific discoveries in the past.

The thought of man flying or stepping on the moon did not come easy to the average citizens of the world. But the fact remains, they were accepted and are now an everyday occurrence in our lives. Genetic engineering is in its period of fear and misunderstandifng, but like every great discovery in history, it will enjoy its time of realization and come into full use in society. The world is on the brink of the most exciting step into human evolution ever, and through knowledge and exploration, should welcome it and its possibilities with open arms.

Is genetic engineering right or wrong? That seems to be the newest question of biology. In some ways its right, but in some ways its wrong. Genetic Engineering can cure a lot of severe diseases. For a short list of examples; cancer and AIDS. They are some the worlds most severe diseases. Cancer alone kills millions and millions of people each year. AIDS on the other hand doesn’t have a full cure; but there is a prescription dose that people with AIDS can get to cure them from cancer for a short time.

If we found a full cure to AIDS or cancer, we would probably already be on Mars (people who have been killed from these diseases could of been people who created ways to get to outer planets)! Genetic Engineering is that cure! All scientist have to do, I word it like its an easy thing to do, is find the rest of the letters in our DNA (you will learn about DNA later in this report). Genetic engineering can also help people who have disabilities. It will make disabilities rare. Also, people who don’t have abilities they want can make sure that their kids do have the ability.

For example, if I wasn’t an athletic person, I could make it so my kids were. This is an amazing ability! Genetic engineering can also make people who are big boned, have small, or normal bone sizes. Genetic engineering has nothing to do with what kind of foods you like, or what your favorite color is. It does make sure you have a certain color of eye, or feature. I have my moms cleft chin. I could make it so my kid has no chance of having a cleft chin. Genetic Engineering is changing the instructions in your DNA. You see, DNA is made up of a twisting “ladder” on the ladder are different “steps. “

Nowadays, scientists have learned a great deal about the chemical changes taking place inside living things. They have deciphered the code, DNA, by which animals and plants pass on their characteristics to their offspring. They have even leant how to alter that code to produce life forms with new characteristics. This new technology involving both chemical and biological science is known as genetic engineering. Through this new technology, we shall soon be able to provide much better treatments, and possibly even cures for certain serious diseases, especially those like inheriting diseases, which cannot presently be cured.

Besides, we shall be able to create new kinds of life, or altered version of existing animals and plants, for medical and industrial uses. Basic, Individual, Building Unit of Life All living things are built up by millions of millions of same fundamental working parts. These are called cells. Cells are microscopic, however there are many different kinds of cells with different properties for a particular task in a living things. For instances, a nerve cell is particularly used for carry messages to and from he brain and have a specific shape differs the others.

Nucleus, the most important part of a cell, which directs the making of essential substances, called proteins, on which all life depends. However, each different organism has its own specific kind of proteins. How do they know which kind of protein are essentials? Inside the nucleus of the cell of each organism, has a special, complex chemical called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). These DNA contains the instruction and informations of what kind of proteins have to be made. DNA is shaped like a twisted rope ladder.

The rungs of the ladder are made up of four chemical bases, which are adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). Each of these bases has special shape that A can only attach with T and G can only attach with C. The sequences of how the bases arrange are the information of what proteins are made. A section of DNA that has the complete code for a single protein is called gene. That’s also what’s genetic engineering working on. Genes determine the type of proteins our bodies make. It controls a huge variety of factors that help make us unique individuals.

As this fact, nobody has exactly the same set of genes as you have, unless you have an identical twin, everyone is looks exactly like you. Genes are stored on long strands of DNA known as chromosomes inside the nuclei of our cells. Most of the cells in your body contain 46 chromosomes, arranged in 23 pairs. Each cell contains the complete set of DNA. Not every cell in the body uses every instruction on the DNA in its nucleus. Instead, it reads only those parts needed to manufacture certain proteins. Inheriting Disease Most of our cells contain 46 chromosomes.

However, two type of cells in human beings that have only half this number. These are the egg cells in females and the sperm cells in males. When fertilization takes place, a sperm joins with an egg, and the 23 chromosomes from each combine to make a new set of 46. That is, all genes in human come from two versions that are 23 chromosomes from your mother and 23 from you father. Although there is two version of the same type of gene, sometimes only one version is used, this gene is call dominant gene. The other is said to be recessive. Inherited diseases or genetic diseases are of two types.

The first are those resulting from a disease-causing dominant gene inherited from either the father or the mother. In this case, the parent who passes on the unhealthy gene must also be a sufferer of the disease. The second type appears when two recessive genes receive from both parents. Since there is no choice but for either one switched on. Huntington’s Disease One of the well-known genetic diseases is called Huntington’s Disease named after George Huntington, the doctor who first described it in 1872. This inherited disease affects about 30,000 people in the United States.

It causes depression, bursts of anger or violence, memory loss, confusion, and shaking movements that, as the disease advances, grow into a grotesque, writhing dance that never stops. All these effects result from destruction of small but vital areas of the brain called the basal ganglia, destruction masterminded by a single dominant gene. Huntington’s disease is one of about 4,000 human diseases had known to be inherited. There is no cure or even treatment for this relentless disease. Perhaps most tragic of all, signs of it usually do not appear until a person is 30 or 40 years old.

By then, many of its victims have had children. There is a 50-50 chance of passing it on to each offspring. Because the gene is dominant, anyone who inherits it will develop the disease. Scientists all over the world went through a several years of hard work to find where the disease-causing gene is located. It is significantly important to know where it located and discoveries how it produces certain proteins to distract the brain, in order to cure this disease. By this disease we can see how genetic engineering applies for medical uses.

If we talk about this disease, it is impossible not to mention about Nancy Wexler. When she was 23, she learned that her mother, Leonore, had Huntington’s disease. That means there is 50-50 chance that she has inherited the genetic mutation and will eventually die just as her mother finally did. She went from being dismal to being challenged and wanting to be a knight in shining amour going out to fight the devils, recalls her father, Milton Wexler. She didn’t devastated by the experience of her mother dying slowing by the disease that threatened her family, instead she is a fighter.

In 1969, Nancy Wexler became President of the Hereditary Disease Foundation, a clinic founded by her father. She received her doctor’s degree in 1974. She formed the Huntington’s Disease Collaborative Research Group, to hunt the location of the gene. She not only functioned as a scientist but as catalyst, keeping scientists from different nations doing the same research. Needle In A Genetic Haystack David Housman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) brought up an idea that the best thing they could do to combat Huntington’s would be to find the gene that caused it.

Such a discovery would produce a test for the disease, which would allow people to find out whether they carried the dangerous gene before they had children. It also could lead to a better understanding of the illness and, possibly, a treatment or even cure for it. Human has more than 100,000 genes, how can they find one gene among them? Housman suggested the use of restriction enzymes, the new technique developed by molecular biologists. Genes differ slightly in length and composition from person to person, a particular restriction enzyme did not snip everyone’s DNA into pieces of exactly the same size.

They called them restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), pronounced riflips. Housman explained that RFLPs could be used as markers for other genes that were as yet unknown. If a particular form of RFLP was always or almost always inherited along with a certain gene, the gene was almost sure to lie very close to the RFLP on a chromosome. If there is procedure without materials, work cannot proceed. Nancy Wexler had known about the Venezuelan family. Venezuelan family is a big Huntington’s family on the shores of a large lake called Maracaibo. But the members of the family living in three different villages.

She returned to Venezuela to collect blood and skin samples members for DNA testing. In 1983, James Gusella, a graduate student of Housman’s, found a particular maker inherited with Huntington’s gene in Iowa, another big Huntington’s family. He then turned to Venezuela, and comparing both. He then certain that that the maker of Huntington’s gene. The most immediate result of Gusella’s discovery was the creation of a test that showed with about 6 percent certainty whether a person would develop Huntington’s disease. The test began to be used in 1986. But this sparked out a controversy ethics issues. Twilight Zone of Genetics

Although the maker of Huntington’s gene was found, but that’s not enough to develop a cure or treatment for the disease. Their next quest was to search for the Huntington’s gene itself. Despite the collaborative research group’s best efforts, the Huntington’s gene remained elusive throughout the 1980s. By 1984, the group had learned that the maker RELP, and therefore the disease gene, was on the short arm of chromosome 4. For many years the Huntington’s group thought their quarry was almost at the end of the chromosome arm, a region so difficult to analyze that Wexler had called it the Twilight Zone of genetics.

Then, just as the end region was finally sequenced, evidence began suggesting that the gene be in fact farther in on the chromosome. The sequencing had to begin all over again. The group’s quest was finally successful early in 1993. Marcy MacDonald, a senior researcher working with James Gusella, was the one who sequenced the Huntington’s gene, and also learned what was wrong with it. Huntington’s Gene The Huntington’s gene that scientists search for many years was a sort of stutter, a repeating sequence of the bases C-A-G.

The genes of people unaffected by the disease had between 11 and 34 of these repeats. In people who developed Huntington’s, however, the repeats numbered 42 or more. Later, a research found out that the more repeats an affected person’s gene had the sooner in life the disease would appear and the more severe it would be. How Gene Leads to Huntington’s Four years after the discovery of the defective gene that causes Huntington’s disease, researchers have produced the first clues about how the gene causes the devastating disorder.

Scientists found that genetic diseases share the same defect with Huntington’s which a genetic stutter that inserts from 30 to 150 copies of the amino acid glutamine into key proteins, altering their properties and causing the disease. They now developing drugs for treatment which delay the onset of symptoms. Genetic Ethics Since the genetic screening can only be used to predict whether a person might develop a genetic disease. It gives probabilities, not certainties. However, as this becomes increasingly common, discrimination arises. For Huntington’s, if a person carried it, possibly he will not be hired.

But we can also take advantage of this technology. For instance, if a woman, who knows she has inherited a tendency to develop breast cancer, might decide to have frequent mammograms so that tumor can be detected while they are still small and easily removable. The Future The new techniques of genetic engineering will solve some important problems while at the same time creating others. Within 50 years, many of today’s most devastating illnesses may be not only treatable but also curable. If people use it in a right way, it will benefit us a lot. Or otherwise, may produce problems more than it be able to solve.

I think that there are going to be a lot of new changes in the upcoming millennium. I think the change that will have the biggest impact will be genetic engineering. One side of genetic engineering will be that parents will be allowed to chose the outcome of their baby. Another side is cloning. I think the biggest part will be correcting DNA to get rid of diseases. That could also be a part of choosing your baby because you could fix any problems before it is even born. I think the part that will most affect our generation will be choosing your baby.

You will probably be able to choose he sex, hair color, skin tone, etc. You might even be able to choose your babies birthdate. You will probably also be able to choose which parent the child resembles more. I think that cloning could also be a part of this because they will be able to make your baby look exactly like whoever you want. I think that cloning will be the change that everyone likes for a little while but then they will realize that it is really bad and we are running out of room to live.

I think it will start out that they get a clone to help with housework but then they will just keep getting more and more until the lones have clones who have clones and no one will have any idea who they are talking to. Then after all of that happens people will be living forty or fifty to a house and the we will have to cut down all of the trees to have room to live and then we will die because we need trees to make oxygen for us. I am strongly against cloning because I believe that if you clone people the will just get lazy and fat because they will have clones running around to do everything for them.

Another thing I do not agree with is fixing peoples problems with gene therapy. I think that if people get a disease it is either their own ault or they got it for some reason. I do not think that we should be able to decide who lives and who dies. It is okay to try and help people live but if they need gene therapy there has to be some reason why they are supposed to die. I think they will be able to fix any problem anyone has by simply giving them a shot that goes into their cells and fixes the part of the DNA that is not right, the question is how will everyone feel about living forever.

I feel okay about some parts of genetic engineering but not any that are going to overpopulate the world. I think another big part of the new millennium will be ntergalactic travel. I think we will be able to just book a flight like you would to go across the country. Im sure that there has to be life out there somewhere because if every star is just like our sun then there has to be planets circling them. Im sure at least one of them has the same type of environment as ours. They will probably make some kind of ship that will be able to go the speed of light or even faster.

I think that there is no way that gasoline will stay around. I think it will be replaced by fuel cells, that convert water to energy. I think they will make it run on water ecause that is the most plentiful substance on earth. Or maybe they will find some new substance on another planet that is more useful or better for the environment. They will probably make a better vehicle that can go a lot faster and without a driver. I believe the change that will impact children the most is that there wont be any school that you have to go to.

All schools will come in through the computer and the Internet. When that happens there wont be any need for paper or writing utensils because everything will be done digitally. That will make kids have a lot better grades because they ont be forced to get up in the morning to go to school. That might make kids grades lower though because they will not want to do any work because they will be at home. I think that communication will change a great deal. You will not need anything to talk to other people.

You will just have a chip in your head that can communicate with other peoples chips. People will be able to communicate across the world by just thinking about who they want to talk to. People will even be able to go on the Internet by just hooking up a screen to their head and thinking which sites they want to go to. I think that sports will change a lot to. They will either go away completely or they will make robots that play the game for everyone. No one will want to play sports because they will be too lazy to do any of that stuff.

There is still enough money in it though for people to keep investing in it. There will probably be some new sports that no one can even dream of now. Houses will also be very different than they are now. You will be able to program everything to be automatic like shower, coffee maker or breakfast. They will be a lot more secure because they will have very advanced security ystems. They will also have different beds that will let you rest faster so it seems like you are getting more sleep in the same amount of time.

I think that the future will have a lot of good and bad things in store for all of us. In the future there will be a ton of new things for all of us to discover and enjoy. I think that the quality of living will greatly increase. Everything will be built very complex but perform so basically. Everything will become run by machines and robots but we will control them. I think that the technology will become so common that it will all become very inexpensive.

The world of science has experienced many profound breakthroughs and advances in the twentieth century, but none perhaps as great as that of genetic engineering. However, the twentieth century society is not prepared or even willing at times to accept the moral and ethical controversies genetic engineering is creating.

Genetic engineering, defined as the use or manipulation of an individuals genetic material in order to produce desired characteristics or results in the same individual, other individuals of the same species, or other species, is undoubtedly changing societys relationship with nature, medicine, and perhaps its own cultural values (Thro 69). It has been predicted for the year 2020, people will have new definitions of health and illness (Oleksy 108). The completion of genome mapping will allow a health plan for each person, preventing genetic disease and promoting a better life (Oleksy 108).

However, genetic engineering, also called gene splicing or gene cloning, is not being welcomed with open arms. It affects the moral values of human beings, as well as other living things. The competing goods in genetic engineering, i. e. creating a stronger, more advanced human race vs. a natural selective process created by God, are virtually impossible to avoid and have placed a temporary hold one the progress of this new technology and societys moral view.

Our society must be persuaded that genetic engineering is of great value in order to become an accepted social practice. This is something that society obviously lacks the conviction for thus far, making genetic engineering an object of continued scientific, as well as philosophical study. 1 Throughout history, science has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment. Although, never in history has science been able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering is undoubtedly doing and will continue to do in the not so distant future.

Genetic engineering can help us create a stronger and more advanced human race by increasing food production, revolutionize new medicines, even enhance human intelligence, physical beauty and strength. Diseases could become weakened and cleaned out of humans genetic makeup. For example, if one parent had a bad gene or some type of hereditary disease, it could be removed from the embryo and replace with another clean gene. This process is called embryo screening (Oleksy 48). Embryo screening is used to determine if an embryo has received a defective gene.

Several embryos could be genetically cloned, the DNA from one of the embryos could then be removed and standard genetic testing would be used to detect whether or not that embryo contained the genetic disease. If this cloned embryo contained a disease, then one of the other embryos could be used for implantation in a parent, thus, guaranteeing that the child would be free of genetic disease (Oleksy 49). This process would certainly be beneficial for couples who are infertile and want to have children. Genetic engineering would enable the couple to produce a baby with their characteristics.

In fact, they would be able to pick and choose the characteristics of their unborn child. Another benefit of genetic engineering, is the possibility of cloning body organs. This process would prove to be very beneficial to people who have lost a body organ such as a kidney. Scientists could clone a particular organ of an individual. This process could have the potential to work better than a transplanted organ, because the genetic makeup of that individual would be used in the re-creation of the organ. 2 Not only does genetic engineering present the possibilities of saving lives; it can save entire species from extinction.

Genetic engineering could be used to increase the population of endangered species of animals, thus saving them from total extinction. This would help maintain a natural balance, and provide a continuous life cycle. Even though there is the belief by some that genetic engineering is overall beneficial, many suggest that genetic engineering is unnatural and not ethically correct. Also, we know too little about this technology to understand the long-term effects of replacing old genes with new ones. Genetic engineering is triggering an ethical emergency within society, and causing this new science to be cast in a dim light.

Anti-technologists, political extremists, as well as numerous individuals of society believe that genetic engineering is not natural and defies the order of things. There are many religious groups that feel genetic engineering should not be considered for any reason whatsoever. Rev. Robert A. Martin states: It appears that from the beginning, God reserved for Himself the right to create living souls (Epstein 2). Others claim that many of the ethical issues being raised about genetic engineering are based in theology, the concern for preserving human dignity and individual freedom.

This somehow parallels to the issue of abortion and whether or not it is morally right. Religion is the root of many individual personal values and beliefs about social matters such as genetic engineering and abortion. Many also believe that genetic engineering will cause unseen disasters because once we decide to begin the process of human genetic engineering, there will be no logical place to stop and there will be no turning back. If diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and cancer are to be cured by altering human genes, why not proceed to other disorders such as myopia, color blindness, and left-handedness?

It is possible that scientists will go too far and genetically alter characteristics that will corrupt society. This scientific 3 information could get into the hands of the economically or politically powerful and used for ill purposes. For example, with the use of genetic engineering, individuals could be created for the sole purpose of fighting war or for creating a perfect society. Already, there is the possibility of creating new animals to be used as medicine factories. If we pick and choose the characteristics of our children, we will become a society of made-to-order humans who have lost forever the great gift of genetic diversity.

A society of eugenics would be created. Eugenics is a theory that deals with the improvement of hereditary qualities by controlling human mating (Tagliaferro 71). In other words, eugenicists believe the human race can be improved by deliberately encouraging people with superior traits to reproduce, while discouraging people with inferior traits from bearing children (Tagliaferro 71). One very strong view held by society is one that compares genetic engineering to other technologies, such as chemical pesticides and nuclear energy, which were welcomed in their early stages.

However, they were later revealed to have dangerous side effects that still threaten society (Tagliaferro 8). I believe that genetic engineering is a part of our natural evolution. Our ancestors evolved by using their hands and minds, creating language and civilizations which advanced society. Genetic engineering is what will advance our society if used ethically in curing diseases, as well as deformities and not in total re-creation of man or animal. Throughout the centuries disease has plagued the world, forcing everyone to take part in a virtual lottery with the agents of death (Stableford 59).

Diseases and deformities are painful, as well as useless. Genetic engineering can aid to the evolution of humans by cleansing our bodies of such ill and in some cases deadly burdens. This isolation and removing of a desired gene is a process that would have taken Mother Nature millions of 4 years of natural selection to develop. I agree that God created the world with a mathematical structure and He had created the human mind with the capacity for grasping that structure (Pearcey, et al 22).

I also understand the view held my many that genetic engineering is unnatural and not ethically correct, however, so would be taking medicine when sick. For those who disagree with genetic engineering, I am sure if their child could be saved from a genetic disease, they would reconsider. Genetic engineering is a powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in the field of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past.

However, I feel that cloning, as well as genetic preference in characteristics is essentially the altering Gods sacred creation. I believe that society fails to understand fully enough, correctly enough and makes mistakes. If the atomic bomb revealed original sin, the era of genetic engineering will reveal it much more (Epstein 4). It has been said that science is the study of nature. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, analyzed all processes of change in categories borrowed from the growth and development of living organisms.

Even prior to modern genetics, it was obvious that the development of living organisms must be directed by some internal pattern that ensures that acorns always grow into oaks, not maples, and that chicks always grow into hens, not horses (Pearcey, et al 60). Aristotle believed that each individual has its built-in specific pattern of development and grows toward proper self-realization as a specimen of its type. Growth, purpose, and direction are thus built into nature (Stumpf 95). Therefore, it is my belief that Aristotle would conclude that genetic engineering is not ethical because it is not a natural process, it is man made.

I further believe that Aristotle would claim that genetic engineering is immoral, particularly cloning, because it is not possible 5 to use this process in moderation. Aristotle believed in the golden mean, which means that everything in moderation gives life meaning (Stumpf 101). In contrast, the philosophical view on morality held by Kant was that morality was regarded as a set of rules which prescribe the means necessary to the achievement of a given end; its rules must be obeyed without consideration of consequences that will follow from doing so or not.

Kant states that an act is good which is properly motivated; proper motivation stems from a sense of duty (Stumpf 316). Other motivations for action are self-interest and inclination, which result in either amoral or immoral acts. So, according to Kant, genetic engineering would be an act in accordance with duty because it is the social belief that technology is the means for finding advanced medical solutions. This social view, in Kants terms, is the universal maxim that applies to all situations.

Genetic engineering will promote world good even though there are consequences. It is not known whether or not genetic engineering will go beyond the laboratory and affect lives of individuals, as well as society. However, what is known is that genetic engineering seems to be very appealing in some aspects and very frightening in others. This is why genetic engineering will continue to be an object of scientific and philosophical study for many years to come.

Science is defined as knowledge based on observed facts and tested truths arranged in an orderly system. It has had an extreme effect on technology, which covers production, transportation, and even entertainment. In the past, though, science has always remained distant. However, with the birth of genetic engineering, science has become something that will deeply affect lives. Advancements are being made daily with genetic engineering: the Human Genome Project is nearly done, gene replacement therapy lies within reach, and cloning is on the horizon.

Genetically altered foods have already become an important aspect of life with “new and better varieties” (Bier, 2001, p. 65) and even the possibilities of solving world hunger. There is no doubt of the benefits that genetic engineering can offer society, but can scientists look that far ahead and truly say what is for the good of society? Does the world understand genetics enough to welcome the possibilities with open arms? Society often runs away or hides from problems, but with genetic engineering it cannot ignore the possible outcomes whether good or bad.

Genetic engineering is clearly beneficial to all kinds of people, but it is possible that negative issues exist which could counteract any good results. “In the near term, there are some very interesting and important issues that we all should consider as a society because they raise potentially profound moral and ethical questions” (Bier, 2001, p. 70). Such issues are that of discrimination and the dangers and difficulty in making ethical decisions. It is society’s duty to step back and view these issues before pursuing genetic research and heading down a destructive path.

Since the origin of man, discrimination has found its way into every type of society through forms of sexism, racism, and religious and cultural prejudice. Throughout the years, though, society has worked to reduce such intolerances and give everyone equal rights. However, if genetic engineering is added to the scene, equal rights could possibly plummet into oblivion. Andrew Niccol accentuates such inequality in his movie Gattaca. In Gattaca, Vincent Freeman is a man who is born naturally instead of in a lab.

Because of this he is labeled by the world as an invalid, and no employment, social position, or even love is possible for him except for those assigned specially to invalids. In order to obtain his dream job, Vincent must use another’s identity to pass as a valid. The fact that he must be a “valid” to acquire a decent job points out the possible outcome of discrimination in the employment world if genetic engineering would become a reality. Employers could obtain a sample of a person’s DNA and not give him/her the job solely based on genes.

Like in Gattaca, there would become jobs for those genetically engineered: lawyers, doctors, and businessmen; and jobs for those naturally born: janitors, bus drivers, and garbage men. In short, equality of rights and opportunity would cease to exist. Discrimination, however, would not stop with employment. Prejudice would become an everyday event even in social life. If genetic engineering leads to pre-picking genes to prevent birth defects, “how will we react to children we meet who have that disorder? ” (Baker, 2001). People will see the child and wonder why it was born.

Parents will have the chance to choose whatever genes they see fit for their child, offering it the best of everything. Society, however, will then look down upon those children “naturally” born. If this type of genetic engineering becomes a common occurrence, society is bound to discriminate against those people with defects or even differences. Yet differences are not bad and can be seen as unique and characteristic of the person they belong to. Some people even say that genetic engineering would “undermine the right of every person to be valued for his or her uniqueness” (Baker, 2001).

The argument is that upon entering this life, a person is given certain qualities and inequalities that make him/her unique to each other. These qualities shape experiences, which in turn shape lives. Even the obstacles a person faces are meant to mold him/her and add character. Genetic engineering, however, removes some of these obstacles. Like in Gattaca, people would conceivably become an unthinking mass following the world’s plan of their lives, not their own. Today, however, people are not an unthinking mass, and we live in a society where everyone can become involved in social and political issues.

With genetic engineering on the horizon, society needs to take a firm grasp on this ethics and ask what it truly wants. Ethical questions are constantly being asked, yet no one wants to face the issues at hand. People are so concerned with pleasing the majority that no one wants to take responsibility. If no one speaks up, though, scientists will continue blindly down an uncertain path. The problem here is that technology is so preoccupied with whether it can, that it never even considers whether it should. Take, for example, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Greg Egan’s The Extra.

In Frankenstein, the narrator, Robert Walton, believes that “one man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which [he] sought” (Shelley, 1991, 13). Victor Frankenstein reminds Walton that he was once nave in this statement and proceeds to tell him how his own actions had led to a “hell within [him] which nothing could extinguish” (Shelley, 1991, p. 72). Genetic engineering has acquired this same navet and society could be blinded to the possible consequences if something is not done.

The risks alone are too overpowering to ignore. As in the case of cloning Dolly, it took 277 tries to produce her, and scientists produced many lambs with abnormalities. The techniques are extremely risky and “more often than not unsuccessful” (Baker, 2001). Risks, however, are not the only concern. Societal abuse of genetic engineering also needs to be a great consideration. With all of the possibilities genetic engineering provides, exploitation of its purposes is bound to occur. The Extras, by Greg Egan, examines such abuse.

The main character, Daniel Gray, has created a produce line of genetically engineered humans that lack any form of intelligence. Their only purpose on is to serve as organ donors for their owner. In essence, genetic engineering has become a fixation of indulgence: “The prospect of living for centuries seemed to have made the rich greedier than ever; a fortune that sufficed for seven or eight decades was no longer enough” (Egan, 2001, p. 47).

With this kind of thinking, society would become what Thomas Hobbes describes as “a condition of war of every one against every one” (Hobbes, 2001, p. ). Abuse of genetic engineering could lead people to forget any sort of compassion and humanity because they are living only for themselves. Charles Darwin even states, “Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends” (Darwin, 2001, p. 3). It is human tendency to try to obtain the best of everything. However, as society takes on nature’s responsibility of natural selection, Darwin points out that man does not discern between desire and necessity.

Genetic engineering would become that of selfishness and personal gain. In The Extras, Gray even admits, “In the end it came down to longevity, and the hope of immorality” (Egan, 2001, p. 54). Nothing is more self-seeking than the aspiration for eternal life, and with genetic engineering, it could certainly become a possibility. Genetic engineering is indeed a large step into the future of mankind, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. Lives will be saved, diseases will be cured, and new information will be available for all who need it.

It is society’s choice, however, whether to embrace it and continue, or look deeper into the future consequences before rushing headlong into the unknown. We hold the future in our hands and do not want to look back upon our creations as Victor Frankenstein did: “I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed” (Shelley, 1991, p. 76). The future is now, and it is society’s task to view the prejudicial and ethical issues concerning genetic engineering carefully. “We have landed on the naked shores of the brave new world, and we need to plan for the future we wish to create” (Bier, 2001, p. 78).

Regenerating extinct species, engineering babies that are born without vital body organs, this is what the use of genetic engineering brings to the world. “In Greek myth, an chimera was a part lion, part goat, part dragon that lived in Lycia; in real life, it’s an animal customized with genes of different species. In reality, it could be a human-animal mixture that could result in horror for the scientific community. In myth the chimera was taken down by the warrior Bellerophon, the biotech version faces platoons of lawyers, bioethicists, and biologists” (Hager).

In this paper, I am going to discuss what has already been done, the unethical side of genetics, and what will happen in the future if we continue to tinker. Genetics pose a major problem to the modern day world. With the deteriorating conditions of the earth today, the use of genetics will further break down our fragile planet. As of 1998, many experiments have been done in the field of genetics, in the next section, I will discuss a few. First, genetics came into the public view in the early 1970’s when a scientist named Paul Berg began experimenting with a strain of E. li bacteria called SV40. (Tagliaferro 69) This was the public beginning to the struggle surrounding genetics.

Berg was not very intelligent about the way he conducted his tests, and he was forced to stop, until the National Institute of Health determined that SV40 was harmless to humans. (Tagliaferro 70) The next major happening in genetics was the Asilomar Conference of 1973. The Asilomar conference was a good start, but it did not set strict enough standards for experimentation, and this caused many harsh, and disruptive experiments. Then in 1975, the second Asilomar conference was held.

This conference helped a little, but it still left to much gray area for scientists to “play” in. (Tagliaferro 70) The Asilomar Conference were a gigantic step forward, but they still left the scientists with to much freedom. The government should have taken control of the industry when it had the chance, but it let the chance slip through its fingers. After the Asilomar conferences, there were no major advancements until the early 1990’s. “In the early 1990’s private companies began experimenting with plants, and pesticides. They modified the plants, and then marketed them as better foods.

In 1991 the Food and Drug administration took the products off the market for examination. They deemed the foods to be fine for human consumption” (Levine). These new wonder plants were supposed to produce more crops, and use less space, but in reality they only produced an average of 3-5 percent more, and they used the same amount of space as the original plants. The downside to these genetically engineered plants was the pesticides that must be applied to maintain them; some of these if not applied right can cause illness, or even be fatal to certain people.

There were a few small advancements from 1991 to 1997, when a group of British scientists cloned Dolly the sheep. The scientists used part of the original animals DNA, and they expanded upon it to where they had the animal’s entire genetic make-up. This procedure shocked the world, in being it was the first known successful cloning. This experiment raised eyebrows, and it upset many people because of the moral lines it crossed. If we can clone sheep, why don’t we clone super humans? This question outraged many, and excited many others.

In the United States, human cloning is controlled by teach state government, but on a whole, the majority of the states have outlawed cloning experiments, and for good reason. Cloning is a dangerous area that if not controlled properly could result in the end of the human race, as we now know it. “Stuart Newman, a cell biologist at New York Medical College has applied for a patent on ways to make human-animal chimeras. Newman doesn’t want to do it. He just wants to make sure no one else does, either” (Hager). Second, there are many concerns that surround the field of genetic engineering.

These concerns range from moral, to environmental, and the ethics that are involved. These concerns have a lot of backing, and are very severe. There are about three moral concerns that surround all genetics, they are; what to do with a mistake, can genetic creatures be patented, and are the things that are made free to live, or should they be contained for experimentation. First, what happens if a geneticist makes a mistake? Well, there are a few options kill it, let it live in a confined area, or let it roam free. All of these options are bad in one way or another.

First, if you kill the mistake, you have wasted time, money, and a life. This is the most scorned option of all three. Next, if you let it live in a confined area, you are depriving it of all the basic frills of life. What kind of life is it to be confined in a small cell with no outside excitement? The last option for geneticists is to let the thing live, and go on with its life as normal. This option provides even more ethical questions, so it is shunned by many. Many times the mistakes may not be well equipped for life in the real world.

They may not be equipped for the stress of human life. The next issues are over the rights, and what rights the creators have. “While the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery can be interpreted as supporting all life, and denying who or what ever made them the right to control them” (Goldberg). According to the 13th amendment the creature should have the rights of an American citizen, and the creator would have no control over it. This exception would help total human clones, but what if it was a human-animal chimera? Would it have rights, or would it be an animal?

The whole situation is murky, I hope that we never come to a point where we have to answer these questions, but only time will tell. The last moral concern is what should happen with the created being? The answer is usually that it should be kept for studying, and experimentation. This option denies the being the right to any sort of meaningful existence. Many are against this, they say that it denies the common liberties of life, and is inhumane. Both reasons are true, and they present strong points of interest. The environmental concerns are obvious.

The earth is deteriorating rapidly, and it could not support some of the larger creatures of years past, but still geneticts try to do the impossible” (Bryan). Time, after time we see movies, and things that portray dinosaurs coming back from extinction. These portrayals are actually quite real, in the world today, the technology exists, and the DNA is available. If dinosaurs and other large extinct animals were brought back, the earth would falter, and the human race would be facing a grave future. In the future, we should devise plans for what to do with what we create before we create it.

There are many ethical concerns that have arisen over the past five to seven years. Two examples are, is what about being humane, and what about religion? The issues have risen, and people have tried to answer them. I will also try to answer these to questions in depth. First, humane is defined as marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals. (Reiss) Many believe that being humane is one of the basic responsibilities of life. Others believe that it is something that should be practiced, but only at certain times.

Humanity is something that should be practiced regularly, but if we genetically engineer animals or humans, how can we be humane, we are messing with the way a creature is made, and how it behaves. How can humanity be extended to creatures that we have created? I don’t feel that it can be done. “Since 1993, geneticists have been experimenting with sheep, and their wool production. Geneticists have modified the DNA of as many as five different breeds of sheep. The genes of these sheep were modified to produce help produce more wool” (Genetics).

Now, how is this humane, we manipulate the genes of animals to better meet the needs of the human race. This is not right. These sheep were not intended to have thick coats, and now they face greater risk of heat related deaths. More over, would we like it if we were being changed and manipulated into living a certain way? I don’t believe so, so why don’t we start treating things the way we want to be treated? Well, there are a few more issues that come along with humanity, product testing, and when should humanity be implied.

First, if an animal is used for product testing, it is looked down upon, but what would happen when companies used genetically engineered animals to test? These genetically engineered animals should be treated the same as all other animals, and they should actually be acted better towards. They should be acted better towards, because we do not know what their bodies, or minds can take. They are fragile creatures, because they have been modified for what humans believe is right, but we do not know the rigors of an animals everyday life, they mainly rely on their natural instincts to act, if we modify them, we might damage their functioning.

The second ethical issue is important in most people’s eyes. Seventy-five percent of the world’s people say they believe in a higher being. Well, if they believe in this so called higher being, how can they live knowing that there are people in this world that are trying to bypass him, and play god themselves. I believe in god, and I do not see how people can actually let this go on. I could not live with myself, if I tried to be above the man himself, it is very disheartening to hear what goes on in this world.

Adam and Eve were doomed for trying to be like god, this is the same damnation mankind is headed to. Everyone’s dream is to have absolute power and control of everything. The genome project and DNA engineering gives man the ability to create life and cu omize life to his specific needs of likes. So how good is too good? Man’s ability to make life or create perfect human beings so they can be in a state of Utopia will disturb the balance of nature. Every individual, every child born on earth is unique i it’s own way, not only by looks but also by their character, their DNA.

Changing this by producing two of the same kind, of which one is produced in the laboratory, unbalances nature. A clone is a cell, a group of cells, or an organism produced by asexu reproduction, which contains genetic information identical to the parent cell or organism. Although some organisms produce asexually naturally, the first artificial cloning by humans were plants developed from grafts and stem cuttings. Cloning involvin very complex laboratory techniques is a relatively recent scientific advancement in today’s world.

Among these is the Genome Project, which involves the research and support of Physical Mapping and DNA Sequencing. This would enable Humans to reproduce b ies that what most parents want. Completing this DNA sequencing and Physical mapping would enable us to change everything in a new born baby to the likes of the parents e. g. IQ, Color, Strength, looks, gender, etc. The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a research program for analyzing the structure of the Human DNA. This is achieved by determining the location of the one hundred thousand genes, and finding the sequence of 3 billion base pairs.

In the United States of erica, this project is overseen by 2 federal Agencies, the National Institute of Health (NIH) through its National Center of Genome Research (NHGRI) and Office of Health and Environmental Research (OHER). Their major goals are to: Mapping and sequencing NA of the human Genome; mapping and sequencing the DNA of model organisms; computerized data collection; storage and handling of the information, addressing related Ethical, Legal, and Social implications.

They recognized that mapping and sequencing the man genome would impact everyone’s life. They questioned how this new genetic information should be interpreted and used, who should have access to it, they are concerned that the information might result in anxiety, stigmatization, discrimination. The uman Genome Project has been used for the cloning of genes responsible for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, retinoblastoma, cystic fibrosis, and neurofibromatosis. If other diseases like these are isolated, biologists can learn about the gene’s pathology of isorders.

For example, before geneticists cloned the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene, to confirm the diagnosis was expensive and very uncomfortable, the tests were also inadequate to detect carriers. But now, with only a blood sample, geneticists an detect most mutations associated with DMD rapidly. The genome information can be used to detect any gene mutations likely to happen to future generations of a family. It helps to predict which individuals have an increase susceptibility to diseases such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes, which result from complex instructions between genes and the environment.

When biologists compare the human genome with the ge mes of other organisms, they may gain an insight into molecular evolution including human evolution. ” (New tools for tomorrow’s health research, 1992). Biologists could use the genes to compare to other genes of other species, they may get more informat n or perhaps even closer to finding out more about the human evolution. The HGP not only helped in the medical field, but also in technology advancement.

Its biggest challenge is to find faster ways to map DNA, which will yield way to faster development f technology. HGP provides way for new job opportunities in biotechnology, health care, computing and information storage. When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, it was a symbolic representation of technology and science being misused. It shows that ever hing has a good side and a bad side to it. Mankind is not ready for the consequences it may have from HGP. In the book, Frankenstein represents all the scientists and the “monster” they created as their invention.

Before misfortune tainted my mind, and hanged its bright vision of extensive usefulness into glummy and narrow reflections upon self. ” (Frankenstein, p. 22). This shows that Frankenstein remembered his happy childhood before he was struck with the idea of creation. As mentioned earlier, gene c information may be used to predict sensitivities to various industrial and environmental agents. “The damages of misuse and the potential of personal threats to the personal privacy should not be taken lightly. “(to know ourselves.

U. S. dept. of health ) “Gene transfer should never be undertaken in an attempt to enhance of improve human beings Somatic cell enhancements engineering would threaten important life values in two ways: it could be medically hazardous, in that risks could exceed the potential nefits and the procedure therefore could cause harm. And it could be morally precarious, in that it would require moral decisions our society is not now ready to make, and it could lead to an increase in inequality and discriminatory practices. (Genet s and Human Malleability. French Heanderson 2-1990)

Using the information provided by Human Genome Project (HGP), a person’s history of Genetic Disorder, insurance will refuse to give him insurance coverage. “Only you have your combination of looks, personality, and behavior. As the saying goes, they bro he mold when you were made! There is no one in the world exactly like you. ” (YOUR GENES, YOUR CHOICES. Bateer). Would like to have someone just like you created artificially? Someone who thinks and acts like you?

What if you have the same interests an have conflicts? Having two of the same person, one being of a laboratory birth is certainly going to unbalance nature. Who has the right to know about the info gained by HGP, when he or she goes for genetic testing? Does a girl at the age of 10 have to ow that she has Hunnington’s disease? For one second, one might think she is happy and needs to know this information, so she can make important decisions ahead of time. But the fact is she cannot know ahead of time. How will she react to the test resul .

She might be too young to cope with it. Also keeping this information secret is hard. If the insurance companies found out about the information they will deny her coverage in their policies. Also to get this information the girl needs to go through e ensive testing, and a Genetic Linkage study, which involves the girl to ask most of her relatives multiple questions, which could be a heavy burden on her. Genetic Information leads to a lot of discrimination. Using HGP, people can produce the “perfect” baby.

If a family, especially countries where females are of a lesser importance then males, found out that the child they are about to have is a female, t n they would have an abortion, which is taking a life away. In the future people can use HGP to change physical and mental states of a newborn baby. They could make it taller, stronger, smarter, change the skin tone, the eye color and hair color, possib ities are endless. But if everyone were to do this there will be no balance. They can bring the dead back to life by using their DNA of the dead, and put it into a newborn.

This is not good, if someone of harmful intentions decides to bring someone like itler back to life. Genetic testing is not 100% accurate. The probability of erroneous results from a genetic test is small but not zero, false-positive or false-negative results can occur because of technical abnormalities or human error. Some Tests su as that for Cystic Fribrosis cannot detect all of the mutations associated with the disorders. So where is the billions of dollars of funding going into? The Human Genome Project and DNA cloning is a weapon aimed for total destruction of mankind.

Just ke the atom bomb, created for national security, yet once dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States of America, caused the lose of thousands of innocent lives and hundreds to follow by mutilations due to the aftermath and the radiat n. If HGP is not restricted now, it will have a more negative impact on the world then a positive one. It might be used to create a “super” race. Man cannot and should not play god by trying to create life the way they want it, leave god’s job to him.

Genetic engineering has some history of good and bad. In 1989as a result of the food supplement Typtophan, 37 people died, 1500 were permanently disabled, and 5000 were very ill as result of high toxin levels in the food. No one knows the future side effects. Such as in August 19994, corn crops grew three inches tall and then suddenly fell over dead, because past crops drained the soil of most nutrients. Genetics have some new applications. They have newer and better-enhanced cells to be bigger and to produce more.

For example soybean companies, they try to get a cell of all or mostly protein. It didnt work to well many people had an allergic reactions. Now scientists are looking and trying to make bigger and better plants. Scientists are also looking for a way to make plants grow twice or three times as big and produce more. That will let them get more crops out of one area of land. Scientists are out to educate people about engineering in plants. To let them know what they are eating. So they dont eat something that a major problem, and most of the public agree to be produced.

Since scientists dont know about the long-term effects, because no long-term tests have been able to conducted. There are some negatives that come with everything but genetic engineering on plants has some pretty good ones. People have unknown reactions to some foods that have been altered. Our public health agencies are powerless to trace problems of any kind, back to the source, because there are no labels. There are unexpected and unknown side effects yet to be discovered. Genetic engineering also has its good side.

We can produce three times as many crops in one field at one time. That will make our plants three times the size. It will also make the food we produce three times as much. This will help people buy making food in good supply year round, and making it cheaper. It will also be good for us because we can genetically engineer food to aid in curing diseases. We will also need to use less land, by producing more food. All in all, genetics engineering is helpful to mankind to cure problems of food shortage and desases.

A relatively recent issue, genetic engineering has nevertheless become an important enough internationally to cause public debates. The issue is complex, involving many parts and, of course numerous ethical concerns. Some of the parts enveloped by genetic engineering are cloning, modifications of genetic traits, and bioengineering of plants and certain animal to yield better crop and product. Much can be done using genetic engineering.

Although we have a potential to harvest and already do see many advantages as a result of this, a deeper issue looms like a cloud on the horizon: are we prepared for the ramifications involved in this concept that has such high potential? At the center of the issue is the perspective of the Church. And it is through human dignity that religion and cloning are linked. Genetic engineering, and, specifically cloning is deeply an issue of dignity.

For example, the Catholic Church addressed human cloning in 1987, stating that cloning is contrary to the moral law, since it is in opposition to the dignity “both of human procreation and of the conjugal union” (2). Thus, cloning is contrary to our moral and theological beliefs since the normal reproduction does not take course: life is created through neither marriage nor sexual intercourse. God’s plan for us is finding a mate-someone we spend the rest of our life with, have children, pass on our knowledge and genetic material.

God’s plan is for us to have two biological parents-those whose genetic, physical, and mental information comes together to produce a new, different being. Cloning completely disrupts God’s plan. A rather controversial issue, cloning, as most such issues, forces one to take a stand on either moral, ethical, religious, or other grounds. Once faced with such dilemna, various religious movements have had to take such stand, which are rather varied throughout the different faiths. The Catholic Church, for example, has denounced cloning and has specifically called to put a ban on human cloning.

God alone is the master of human life and of its integrity” states Pope John Paul II. “To respect the dignity of man, consequently, amounts to safeguarding this identity of the man “corpore et anima unus,” states the Vatican Council II (3). The biological individuality of a person is untouchable, being made of both spirit and the body.

Some other statements of John Paul II in his address to the World Medical Association: “must not infringe on the origin of human life, that is, procreation linked to the Union, not only biological but also spiritual, of the parents, united by the bond of marriage. must, consequently, respect the fundamental dignity of men and the common biological nature which is at the base of liberty, avoiding manipulations that tend to modify genetic inheritance” However, the Catholic Church is rather ambiguous when time comes for taking a stand on certain other issues. The vagueness of the Catholic Church comes in genetic engineering-no literature was found that details the point of view of the Catholic Church regarding topic such as, for example, genetic crop modification.

The Church of Rome stands for what will benefit man and society, and its well being, and thus it may be safe to assume that enhanced production of crops, more milk, xenotransplantation, and the many benefits we can harvest from genetic modifications the Church does not oppose. Several advocates of the Catholic Church express their views on the matter through the biblical and evolutionary perspective. One scholar points out that crossbreeding is prohibited to maximize diversity: “You shall keep my statutes.

You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff” (Leviticus 19:19). In a Christian tradition, the mixing of DNA is biblically unjust (5). Many Christians are cautious in the genetic alteration of God’s creation. Also according to John Paul II, the dignity of men transcends his biological condition (3). Thus, the dignity is more important than our biological well-being, a reason why cloning is denounced.

Orthodox Christianity has a very similar position along with Islam. Judaism, on the other hand, has a less firm stand on cloning: cloning is allowed unless it is done for reproductive reasons (even then, exceptions are possible). Cloning for therapeutic reasons, for example, is acceptable. Not without some religious conflicts, however of “the oneness of the human person and the duty to heal oneself’ (4). Other religions are most straightforward with other forms of genetic engineering.

The Buddhists, for example, believe in the karma of the body, saying that “the only ethical limit is suffering”, and thus genetic engineering can be used to improve our physical parameters. The body is only a vehicle for karma. If the body has been genetically altered or cloned, it’s really not very important. ” The main concern is to avoid pain and suffering (4). The main concept is ahimsa-“non-harming”-respect for the intrinsic value of all sentient beings, not only human life (6).

According to the Society, Religion, and Technology Project, a part of the Church of Scotland, it not so much that genetic engineering crosses some forbidden line, as that it affects patterns and relationships in the natural world that we still only partially understand (1). It is a web of life that we are messing with-a web we did not create, a web we are merely a part of. What we do to the web we do to ourselves. “In the givenness of the created order, there is a wisdom we do well to respect. Wider relationships matter as much as the single effect desired by the scientist” (1).

In August of 1999, the Church of England was forced to take a stand on the issue of bioengineering after being asked to lease some of its land for planting of crops under scientific trials-genetically modified crops. The Church turned down the request pending a formal inquiry into “the theological implications of genetic modification” (7). Once the inquiry was completed, several issues were recognized: -“God’s diverse creation of beauty and balance is diminished if, by applying knowledge, the choices we make result in more ill than good being visited on our neighbours in creation. ” -“Good science is patient.

Applied with wisdom and integrity it will always seek to magnify God’s Divine Purpose” “if genetic manipulation of a type pertinent to this inquiry is an activity that in principle strays into realms that belong to God, and to God alonethen however beneficial the consequences might be, as Christians we would be required to resist”. -“It remains true however, that human intervention has been pivotal in pursuing scientific and medical revelation over time; discovery and invention are the result of exercising Gods gifts of mind and reason. The possession of these powers is, in part, what it means for humanity to be created “in the image of God”.

Furthermore, the natural order of God’s creation must be recognised and respected, but “unnaturalness” cannot itself be the source of ethical prohibition if the benefits can be shown to be very great. Genetic modification may nonetheless involve some things which ought not to be done today, but which ought not to be ruled out for ever. ” -“Reverence for creation cautions against haste, in favour of humility” (8). The inquiry decided that the Church should continue to support research and those involved in genetic research where the purpose is healing, however each such quest for support must be approved on an individual basis.

Experiments in genetic mutation unconnected with healing, however, “debases human dignity in the sight of God” (8). It has been stated correctly before that one of the roles of the Church is to caution us where it so happens that the pursuit of knowledge and the ability to perform certain techniques outpaces the complete understanding and knowledge of effects. This, in our history, humanity has done many a time. The Church’s role has been that of a prophet, warning us that just because we can do something, does not mean we should.

A planting season requiring no dangerous herbicides or toxic pesticides. Thousands of dollars saved, because nutritional supplements are now needless. A beef steer reaching market weight in 75 days. The use of medicines nearly nonexistent. Millions of human lives improved and even saved by a sheep’s milk or a pig’s brain cells. Something out of a science fiction novel? A scientist’s unrealistic fantasy? Maybe something that could happen in 500 years? That may be what many of you believe. But right now, these miracles are happening in laboratories all over the world.

The first Genetic Engineering technique, still used today, was the selective breeding of plants and animals, usually for increased food production. In selective breeding only animals with desirable characteristics are chosen for further breeding. Though these practices may have seemed sufficient in the past, they are actually hit and miss cases with little chance of success. Through Biotechnology, breeders choose specific genes. Breeders can also incorporate genes from an unrelated species, giving an animal or plant new features the previously wouldn’t be available.

This system is faster, more exact, cheaper and less likely to fail than traditional methods. Plants can now be engineered to be resistant to pesticides, insects, and diseases. The environmentally-friendly herbicide Glyphosate is very successful in killing weeds, but unfortunately kills crops as well. Crops are now being engineered to be resistant to such herbicides. Grazing crops now have improved nutritional qualities to enhance livestock productivity. Pasture grasses, for instance, that have been developed with Lucerne strains become sulfur rich, which produces higher quality wool.

Genetically Altered animals help scientists discover treatments for a variety of human diseases. Pure human products, such as insulin and Human Growth hormone, can now be produced in commercial quantities. Sheep’s milk is used to produce A1A, an enzyme used in the treatment of emphysema: cow’s milk is used to produce a protein that combats bacterial infections: and goat’s milk is used to produce tPA a blood-clot-dissolving enzyme. Pigs, being easy to raise, have been organ donors to humans for many years. Heart-valves from pigs are being used as replacements for worn-out or diseased human heart-valves.

Recently, pig brain cells have been injected into the brain of people with Parkinson’s disease to replace the brain cells destroyed by this crippling disease. Cattle have been treated to increase milk and beef production, as have pigs to yield more meat and less fat. In the very near future we may be able to produce plants that require less water, can grow in an arid climate, are higher yielding, and carry a higher protein level. Plants will become salt tolerant, so that salt-water can be used for irrigation purposes.

We will be able to protect our farms by allowing reduced and more effective use of chemical pesticides and herbicides, therefore creating a healthier and safer environment. Farm productivity will improve as food production increases in crops and animals, which in return will reduce food costs. Plants and animals both will see increased resistance to disease and external damage. Soon technology will be made available to repair genetic defects, and enhance an effect all ready present, such as an increased growth rate. Transgenic animals may soon be the dominant source of pharmaceuticals.

The need for biotechnology can be seen everyday. Many of us have had crops ruined by the bacterial and viral infection, insects, worms, weeds, and unpredictable weather. Insects are becoming resistant to our most potent chemicals many of which cause biological problems. Millions of dollars are spent on what may become useless chemicals or nutritional supplements for grazing animals. Conventional cross breeding is slow, only similar species can be bred, and it is hit and miss, as well as expensive in time and money. Many questions have been raised over moral and ethical issues involved in biotechnology and engineering.

But most Americans view the coming of genetic technology as they view organ transplants or chemotherapy: there are many practical questions about how the technologies get developed and tested, who needs them, and how we pay for them, but there is no question that they should be made available. Some technologies are so inscribed with harmful ends that no amount of regulation and social direction can make them worth the risk. If I were convinced that genetic technology had no redeeming qualities and only great risks, then I would press for a complete ban. But the potential benefits of genetic technology far outweigh the potential risks.

I believe in a position of critical support, which reflects the suspicious optimism most people around the world have toward genetic technology. In rural Oklahoma, these ideas do seem fictitious. But the benefits for local farmers and ranchers are obvious. Many long time farmers may be incredulous to such changes, but I strongly believe that the vast benefits will convince even the most critical skeptics. Biotechnology, with the correct regulations and experiments, has the potential to launch the agricultural community far into the twenty-first century.

Right now, agriculture creates the main source of income in our nation’s economy. Yet, we are quickly being pushed down to number two by the computer and technology industries. By integrating Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering into our every-day farming lives, we can overcome any and all other industries, and keep our prestigious heights of competition and income. Soon these biological technologies will be used by the best farms and greatest breeders, simply because they choose to “Embrace the Change” as I believe all agriculturists should.

The Human Genome Project is a worldwide research effort with the goal of analyzing the structure of human DNA and determining the location of the estimated 100,000 human genes. The DNA of a set of model organisms will be studied to provide the information necessary for understanding the functioning of the human genome. The information gathered by the human genome project is expected to be the source book for biomedical science in the twenty-first century and will be of great value to the field of medicine.

The project will help us to understand and eventually treat more than 4,000 genetic diseases that ffect mankind. The scientific products of the human genome project will include a resource of genomic maps and DNA sequence information that will provide detailed information about the structure, organization, and characteristics of human DNA, information that constitutes the basic set of inherited “instructions” for the development and functioning of a human being.

The Human Genome Project began in the mid 1980’s and was widely examined within the scientific community and public press through the last half of that decade. In the United States, the Department of Energy (DOE) initially, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) soon after, were the main research agencies within the US government responsible for developing and planning the project. By 1988, the two agencies were working together, an association that was formalized by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to “coordinate research and technical activities related to the human genome”.

The National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR) was established in 1989 to head the human genome project for the NIH. NCHGR is one of twenty-four institutes, centers, or divisions that ake up the NIH, the federal government’s main agency for the support of biomedical research. At least sixteen countries have established Human Genome Projects. The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and the National Research Council (NRC) prepared a report describing the plans for the US human genome project and is updated as further advances in the underlying technology occur.

To achieve the scientific goals, which together encompass the human genome project, a number of administrative measures have been put in place. In addition, a newsletter, an electronic bulletin board, a comprehensive dministrative data base, and other communications tools are being set up to facilitate communication and tracking of progress. The overall budget needs for the effort are expected to be about $200 million per year for approximately 15 years. Lasers are used in the detection of DNA in many aspects of the project; a very important use is in sorting chromosomes by flow cytometry.

Lasers are also used in confocal fluorescence laser microscopy to excite fluorescently tagged molecules in genome mapping, in addition to other mapping uses. In diagnostic applications, lasers are used with fluorescent probes attached to DNA o light up chromosomes and to create patterns on DNA chips. From the beginning of the human genome project it was clearly recognized that acquisition and use of such genetic knowledge would have momentous involvements for both individuals and society and would pose a number of consequential choices for public and professional deliberation.

As Thomas Lee writes, “the effort underway is unlike anything ever before attempted, if successful, it could lead to our ultimate control of human disease, aging, and death”. Whatever its justification, the human genome project has already nspired society with the hope of “better” babies, and one way to deploy pragmatism in the analysis of genetic engineering is to look at this promise of “better” babies in its social context: parenthood. Parents hope for healthy children and, if they could afford it, make choices (such as choosing parental care) to help “engineer” healthier babies.

Genetic engineering seems in this respect to offer the brightest hope for parents. Through germ-line therapy, disastrous, but genetically discrete diseases, such as Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis could be removed from the DNA of the egg or zygote. Clearly parents would follow the model in choosing to avoid a short, painful life for their children. Another more reasonable fear is that we have not the slightest idea what we are doing and ought to avoid making hasty choices. Hybrid varieties are often impossible to protect from the complexities and dangers of nature.

In the human condition, this is the possibility of making an error and creating a genetically advanced baby who cannot cope with an imperfect world. While much of society reports a willingness to modify DNA for the purpose of heightening intelligence, ducation about genetics and medicine is still in its beginning. Jonathan Glover argues for a “pragmatism of risks and benefits”, writing that, “The debate on human genetic engineering should become like the on nuclear power: one in which large possible benefits have to be weighed against big problems and great disasters”.

One significant element is the assertion that genetic engineering is radically different from any other kind of human medicine, and constitutes interference in a restricted area, trying to “play God”. As Robert Wright notes, “Biologists and ethicists have by now expended housands of words warning about slippery slopes, reflecting on Nazi Germany, and warning that a government quest for a super race could begin anew” if genetic engineering ventures “too far”.

In my opinion, I believe that, if and only if, a deadly disease is detected, then the scientists and/or doctors should tap into the DNA of a zygote or egg for testing and absolute knowledge of the steps of the procedure must be present. I do not believe that there should be a genetically advanced child in the world, everyone is created equal and nobody should have their destiny changed for any reason.

Many diseases seen today are the result of a defective gene in the DNA of the patient and can not be cured using the traditional methods such as antibiotics and antiviral medication. The victims are now looking to gene therapy as a potential cure for their problems. Bob Williamson introduces us the concept, procedures, and problems associated with gene therapy in his article, Gene Therapy. Along with the appearance of the recombinant DNA technology, it becomes possible for human beings to isolate, study, and change gene in the laboratory.

Gene Therapy is the process of replacing a defective gene inside a patients DNA with a working gene that will produce the correct gene products. The genetic diseases in which a single known gene does not function properly, such as sickle cell anaemia, thalassaemia and Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, are most suitable to be treated with the gene therapy. There are two types of gene therapy in curing these diseases, patient therapy and embryo therapy.

In the process of the patient therapy, the first step is identifying the defective gene and isolating a normal counterpart. To obtain correct gene action, it may be necessary to put it into the correct site on the host cell chromosome, or even to delete the defective gene, and the DNA can then be replicated each time the host cell divided. But if the new cell is injected directly into the patients body, it will be subject to the bodys immune system that will recognize it as foreign and target it to be destroyed along with the healthy DNA that it is carrying.

So the cells extracted from the patient are to be treated and adding the new gene in a test tube in the laboratory to make sure that the DNA is inserted in an appropriate place in the genome, and the cells can then be returned to the patients body. Now it is possible to offer the parents an antenatal diagnosis to look over if the fetus is affected by some single gene defects. If it does, the parents can choose embryo therapy to cure it rather then abortion.

While the basic process is similar with the one of patient therapy, to do an embryo therapy is a little bit easier than a patient therapy, because the immune rejection system of the embryo is not fully developed. The new DNA will not be ejected, while the former DNA will be altered. Gene therapy seems to be a promising and positive step for the medical community, but ethical questions arise every day as we discover more and more about the contents of the human genome. Does any person, whether well or ill, deserve respect as an individual?

If the answer is affirmative, then carrying out experiments on patients, as Dr. Martin Cline of the University of California attempted to do in 1980, is fundamentally unethical. The clinicians must examine their own consciences and decide whether they behaved correctly and with full knowledge of the proposed treatment. Society has decided that part of it is that a termination of pregnancy before approximately 3 months is allowable if the child would suffer a serious handicap, but how to define a serious handicap.

Is it ethical to terminate the pregnancy, if there is still a chance for the embryo to be normal? As the treatment of an early embryo will alter its inheritance, whether gene therapy poses long-term genetic problems to human inheritance? These are questions that will have to be answered by both the medical community and the patients, and there are no clear precedents at this time. Gene therapy has a promising potential to improve the lives of those who have diseases that have until now been death sentenced, but to take it into real practice human beings still have a long way to go.

Two years ago Scottish scientists announced that they had successfully cloned a sheep. They named it dolly and it was an exact copy of the original sheep. Is cloning morally right? Is it ethical? Some people think that it is wrong and that it shouldnt be practiced on any animal. In this report I will tell you about genetics, cloning and whether I think it is wrong or right. Genetics Is the study of a persons genes or ancestry. Genealogists can tell you where your ancestors immigrated to America from. They can also tell you why you have a certain color hair or why you are shorter than everyone.

Genes will determine how short you are and what your personality is like. They are the building blocks of life. You will get a gene from your mom and your dad. they will combine to make a single gene. Gene types are represented by letters, capital letters and lower case. A capital letter stands For a dominant trait and a lower case stands for a recessive trait. When a capital letter and a lower case letter are mixed it is called a hybrid and the dominant trait will take over and the baby will turn out like the parent with the dominant trait.

Cloning is a method of making a copy of a cell. the cell may belong to a animal or a human. In a very brief way it works like this. You take an egg, and remove the nucleus, and by doing this you are removing of the eggs genes. Then, you take a nucleus from a cell belonging to the first sheep. You put the cells nucleus into the egg. You then electrically trick the reconstructed egg into believing that is a fertilized egg so it will divide and become an embryo.

When the embryo has reached a certain stage, you transfer it to the uterus of a surrogate mother. Then the clone is born the usual way, looking and acting just like a regular healthy baby. Thats how Dolly the sheep was created. Today Dolly is a normal, healthy sheep, who has had four children, and they are just as healthy. After researching the topic, I believe that cloning is okay. I think that some day it will lead to great breakthroughs in the medical and scientific worlds.

Of course that I do not think that there should be any restrictions to practice cloning. I think that you must have permission from the government and you must have a Medical diploma. Also, you must have watched the procedure at least 3 times and take a lengthy test on the process of cloning. Right now there are many laws against cloning and it is outlawed in every country. All in all, cloning is safe and easy process. It is not cruel and should be legal to practice, but, of course not without restrictions.

The article I read was about some scientists that were able to grow teeth inside rats bodies. This project was led by Pamela C. Yelick, a scientist for Forsyth Institute, and the project was conducted in Massachusetts. Joseph P. Vacanti, a tissue engineer at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Yelick had the idea for the experiment. Vacanti had previously worked with rats and he found that cells will naturally organize themselves into tissues and other complex structures if they are placed in the right environment. Vacanti and Yelick hypothesized that the same approach could be applied to growing teeth.

Previous research had identified the stem cells that make dentin, but no one had been able to use the stem cells that make tooth enamel prior to this experiment. The teeth were formed inside the bellies of rats using stem cells from pigs. Yelick obtained the cells from discarded pig jaws at a meat packing plant. The scientists removed a molar that had not yet erupted from the pig jaw to use for the project. They ground the molar into small pieces and treated it with enzymes to break it down into small patches of cells. The cells were then placed into a scaffold and implanted into the rats.

The scientists placed the scaffolds in the blood-rich tissue near the rats intestines. This area provided the nutrients that the cells needed to grow. The rats used in the experiment had weakened immune systems that would not reject the foreign tissue. At that point, the researchers could only wait for the teeth to grow. As an added precaution, the rats were placed in a special clean room behind locked doors. The researchers would periodically x-ray the rats to see if anything had grown, but it was not until after several months that they actually found encouraging splotches inside the rats.

This article showed that we can use stem cells to create tooth enamel that we can use for new teeth and other dental needs in the future. Before this project, the idea of creating teeth using stem cells was only a thought. In class we talked about the creation of human organs inside of animals, cloning animals, and cloning humans, but we had not mentioned cloning teeth. Cloning humans brought up many ethical issues, but I do not think cloning teeth would pose any problems. The information in this article seems biased. The Boston Globe is definitely not a scientific journal.

There are no negative points about the procedure in the article and the writer only obtained information from people that were directly involved in the project. I am interested in hearing what other scientists in the industry have to say about these findings. This project was consistent with the scientific method. I think the original observation was How can we grow teeth in a lab? Yelick and Vacanti then hypothesized that they could grow teeth using the same methods that are used to grow new tissue. The experiment consisted of placing the scaffold in the rat to try to grow the teeth.

Their conclusion is simply that the cells were able to grow teeth inside the rats bodies. It is hard to say that conclusions were drawn logically from the evidence. The article mentions that the scientists saw something on the x-rays that looked whiter than bone. The article does not mention if it was definitely a tooth and if it is a tooth how accurately the tooth was grown. This study raises many future questions. The researchers still need to figure out how to increase the size of the teeth and how to make the roots grow. They also need to figure out how to move the technology from pigs to human patients.

The pigs immune system will need to be compatible with a humans immune system in order to effectively grow the new teeth. We also need to know if the tooth will survive when moved to the human, if there are any side effects, and how long the tooth will last. This experiment could obviously bring about great rewards in the future. I am all for continuing research on this project and I hope that the scientists continue to show progress. Genetically created teeth are far from the argument of playing God and it could only help those in need of special dental care.

“Those who are ignorant to history are destined to repeat it. ” Although genetic engineering is an entirely new field, it brings up issues, especially in eugenics, that society has previously had to deal with. It gives people the power to change many aspects of nature and could result in a lot of life-saving and preventative treatments. However, if this power is misused or abused, the damage could be very great. Therefore, although genetic engineering is a field that should be explored, it needs to be strictly regulated and tested before being put into widespread use.

Some say that people have been trying to change and manipulate nature for many years and that genetic engineering is only an expansion of what has been done. They feel that whatever genetic engineering allows us to do, it is just a natural step in the process. However, in the past, people have been limited by nature and the boundaries that it has set. Until now, people have never had the capability of getting past these boundaries completely. Although occasionally the species boundary has been crossed, nature has set its limits.

For example, scientists have been able to cross the horse and donkey to create the mule, but its reproduction has been restricted by it being sterile. With genetic engineering, however, changes can be made at the genetic level and these limits could be completely ignored. If a limit is not set between using genetic engineering for treatment and using genetic engineering for enhancement, then many parents could use it purely for eugenic purposes. One survey done by researchers showed that eleven percent of couples would abort a child predisposed to obesity.

With genetic engineering they could decide to substitute their childs undesirable characteristics for more desirable ones in order to “customize” their children. This could not only cause ethical concerns but social concerns as well. If this was allowed to occur, it would also give the rich even more advantages than they already have to begin with and drive the social classes even farther apart. The use of genetic engineering may also lead to genetic discrimination. In the future a person could easily get a print-out of his or her genotype.

This same information could then be used by schools, employers, insurance companies, and others, giving rise to a new form of discrimination based on a persons genetic profile. Already, insurance companies and others are using information from genetic tests or a persons genetic background for discrimination. One survey of people who are at risk for certain diseases showed that 455 out of 917 said that they had experienced some sort of genetic discrimination. One family lost their entire coverage when the insurance company discovered that one of its four children had fragile X disease.

Parents could also encounter discrimination based on their decision of whether or not to use genetic engineering for their children. If a couple decides not to test for a genetic disorder or decides not to use genetic therapy even if only for treatment, then if their child is born with a disorder they could be criticized and held responsible for not correcting something that could have been prevented. In order to avoid having the decision of what to do if their child has a genetic disorder, some people might opt for prevention and avoid marrying someone of the wrong “genotype”.

Currently, in the Orthodox Jewish community of the United States, people are encouraged to be tested for the Tay-Sachs gene. This information is then stored in a large database and is used when people are searching for someone to marry. Genetic engineering also involves more than just social and ethical concerns. The implications of using genetic engineering are not fully known and the dangers involved are unpredictable. Just one example of this is in the case where scientists are raising pigs with human organs in order to help fill the constant demand.

However, these xenotransplantations could provide ideal conditions for animal pathogens to jump over from animals to humans creating dangerous new diseases and perhaps even an AIDS 2 or AIDS 3. Without extensive testing the effects that procedures like this could have would be unthinkable. By experimenting with and trying to make nature better or more useful, one is playing with a very delicate balance that can have tremendous effects if it is thrown off. It is evident that there are many benefits that can come about from the use of genetic engineering.

However, a line needs to be drawn as to what point one goes from treating to enhancing. If a line is not drawn then fixing “flaws” can become a dangerous role when one considers that every human has a number of lethal recessive genes. It may be possible in the future to create a near “perfect” human, but if this is the goal, then each person is only seen as having a certain number of mistakes that need to be fixed. Without certain restrictions, the implications may be very far-reaching and unpredictable dangers may exist; if genetic engineering is strictly controlled, however, the results may be extremely beneficial.