down syndrome
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 genet
or 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 (Stablef! 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! ableford 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 a! ord 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 ce
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Approximate Word count = 2300
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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