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 understandi!

ng genetic engineering and its history, discovering its possibilities, and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of fear covering t

gland. Denckla proposes that as we get older the pituitary gland begins to produce a hormone that 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).

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.

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).

"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 of nucleotide bases, the building blocks of DNA molecule; this site is called the restriction site. Now that the desired port!

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 chil!

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

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Approximate Word count = 2939
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)