The Future of Geomic Research in the United States
Too often, when the term genetic engenering is uttered, people envision a world of geneticly "perfect" people where thouse who are normal are looked down on by genetic supermen. The fact that this vision could not be further from the truth does not dissuade the nay sayers from vemonently dissparaing the practice of genetic engenering, in any of its many forms. The truth of the matter is that the genetic feilds of study, particularly the feild of genomics (the study of sequences of genes known as genomes), have bee revollutionised recently and have become a science of prevention and prediction rather than one for the creation of superhuman beings. The future of genomic research is, however, in question as federal funding in the United States has not been keeping level with the new advances in research. "Early in the development of their discipline, geneticists treated the unit of inheritance, or gene, as a purely formal concept; their experiments consisted cheifly in analyzing the characteristics of individuals in order to determine the genetic constitutions (genotypes or genomes) of those individuals. In recent times - and it is difficult to say exactly when this change began - geneticists began explorations at higher and l
There are disenters, however, who do not belive that further funding should be given to genetic reaserch, in any of its forms including genomic study. These nay-sayers point to the potiential threats inherint in this genetic study are proclaim them too great to be flirted with. They state that genetic research can and enevitably will lead to horrible weapons and engeneried diseases, they are particualarly worried about altering of creating more of existing diseases, prehaps with good reason. "It has been found that DNA of two quite different viruses that normally infect mammals may invade a species of bacterium known as Bacillus subtilis. One of these viruses is the vaccinia virus, wich causes smallpox in man; the other is the polyama virus, which is assosiated with cancerous growth in human tissues" (Ravin 202). Such a technique, mearly a side product of gegnetic research, would allow the unscrupulous to create entierly new viruses of replicate the originals at will. ower levels of organization than the individual. In decending to the molecular level, geneticists were concerened with the physiochemical nature of the gene"(Ravin 2). In other words therecent advances in genetics and genomics have led to a revolution within the field. With this shift in attitude came a new focus on genomes and gene structure.
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Approximate Word count = 1686
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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