A Research Study On Gene Therapy

The foundation of genetics lies with the principles that Gregor Mendel outlined after his experiments with pea plants where he discovered the relationship between physical characteristics, or phenotype, and genetic traits, or genotype. This experiment aimed to reproduce Mendel’s results with the Brassica rapa plant, noted for it’s fast generation time, and anthocyanin, a purple pigment that can be visually tracked through subsequent generations. It is important for experiments resulting in scientific discovery to be replicable and peer reviewed. Since Mendelian genetics are the foundation of scientific education, including answering questions about

Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, discovered principles of inheritance through breeding peas of different color and texture. He crossed several types of peas to investigate dominance relationships, variability, and genetic probability. Through his experiments, he laid down the foundation of inheritance that geneticists use to this day (Griffiths, 2015). From these crosses, Mendel pioneered modern genetics by developing seven laws of inheritance. The first and second law are investigated in this experiment.

This is one of the major factors that lead to the absence in the gaining of therapeutic science. Although the lack in progress cannot be the only factor blasted for; some scientific trials have confirmed both anxious and fearful, advancing tighter on gene therapy restrictions. According to Hogarth, this hotly debatable topic of whether it is dangerous or not “playing God” has caused many religious, governmental, scientific and public figures to signify their own concerns in fierce debates (Hogarth para 9). Since the beginning of gene therapy, there has always been a constant battle over the guidance of its future of whether gene therapy will transform into a therapeutic science or lead to unpleasant consequences as the eugenics did in the 20th century. The ethics of gene therapy have been established and based on, not only beliefs, but also the disconnection and advantages achieved in the trials, which has lead to the breakthrough of the future of gene therapy. The downfall and advancement of gene therapy are the hereditary products of research that have had a major influential impact on its ethical features. When gene therapy was a novice, it gained an immense amount of popularity when scientific research evolved towards identifying genes that induce certain diseases (Hunt, 2006).

Fifty years after the idea of gene therapy was first proposed, gene therapy has become a possible treatment for a couple different diseases. Before this treatment was approved, some serious unfavorable effects were found in clinical trials. However, these effects fueled more basic research in order to improve, in efficiency and safety. Gene therapy has been used for patients with blindness, neuromuscular disease, hemophilia, immunodeficiencies, and cancer.

For anyone who’s heard of Mendel’s pea plants should also be familiar with the idea of the heritability of traits. Gregor Mendel was the one accredited with coming up with the idea of genetic heritability; the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring. With his peas, Mendel demonstrated that offspring were not the blended versions of their parents. Mendel also created a list of laws, such as the law of segregation, independent assortment, and of dominance. Each law has been tried and tested, and is now considered absolute truth by the scientific community;

Gregor Mendel is known as the father of modern genetics because of the research and experiments he did by breeding pea plants and examining their physical appearances. He studied the plants seed color and shape, pod color and shape, and flower color and position. Mendel collected the seeds from pods produced after fertilizing two parent pea plants and then grew those seeds into new plants and observed how the offspring resembled or differed from the parents. After all of his experimentation, Mendel was able to conclude 3 principles. The principle of segregation, which meant that each organism has two alleles for each gene, one from each parent that separate

The topic of genetics have fascinated scientists ever since the 1800’s when Gregor Mendel became the “father of genetics. Gregor Johann Mendel's study with peas revolutionized the field of biology. Using the peas, he was able create the foundation of genetics. Mendel's study was performed by crossing peas of differing variation to created a sequence of offspring. Initially, monohybrid characteristics, singe traits that only affected each other, were observed. Surprisingly, he found a ratio of 3:1 dominant to recessive genes in the first generation of peas. He also figured out that phenotypes that weren’t seen in the first generation are found in the second generation due to the dominant representation of dominant alleles. Then, dihybrid characteristics,

Before Gregor Mendel’s discoveries in the mid 1800’s, most people had no clear idea as to why their children, and grandchildren, looked like them! Most people assumed that because the child was in their family, and created by them, that familiar looking offspring just simply happened. Gregor Mendel put all that guessing to rest. Mendel did experiments on two different colored pea plants. In the first test, he mixed a purple flowered pea plant, and a white flowered pea plant. He let these plants fertilize and have off spring. These two plants were known as the Parent generation (P Generation). The offspring they produced were known as the F1 Generation. The P Generation created an F1 Generation that was all purple pea plants. Mendel then bred a new generation of pea plants ONLY breeding plants with themselves. This new generation was known as the F2 Generation. Within the F2 Generation, the white flowered pea plants began to show back up. The ratio of purple flowered pea plants, to white flowered pea plants was a 3:1 ratio. Mendel also noted that the purple and white color had not been blended; the white color was just purely masked by the purple color in the F1 Generation. Mendel was then able to make conclusions about simple breeding. He called the purple flowers dominant, because they were more frequent than the white flowers. He called the white flowers recessive, because they were less frequent than the purple flowers. Therefore he concluded that the purple flowers were

While studying pea plants, Mendel realized that basic underlying principles of heredity found in pea plants could also apply to more complicated life forms like humans and animals and essentially discovered genetics. By selectively breeding and observing the seven factors of pea plants over multiple generations, Mendel found that invisible ‘’factors’’ now known as genes provide ‘’visible and nonvisible traits in predictable and observable ways’’ (Landry). Mendel found that, when breeding a purebred white flowered pea plant with a purebred pea plant with purple colored flowers, the offspring had purple colored flowers rather than a mix of the two. He also discovered that alternative forms of these genes existed, these are later called alleles. Mendel created three scientific laws from his findings. Mendel’s Law of Segregation states that the alleles of a gene separate from each other during a process called gamete formation. Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment states that genes of different traits can separate independently during this process. Mendel explains that alleles can be dominant or recessive and that an organism with at least one dominant allele will show the dominant trait. This is explained in his Law of Dominance. A common theory at the time was that traits were present in all generations but Mendel postulated that traits can be recessive or dominant when he observed the phenomena of traits not appearing in one generation but

Gregor Mendel discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance. He chose pea plants as his experimental organism and carried out self-fertilization experiments. Mendel’s laws are the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment. Mendel’s law of segregation says that the two copies of a gene separate from each other during transmission from parent to offspring. When an individual possessed two identical copies of a gene, the individual is said to be homozygous with respect to that gene. Using Mendel’s cross of tall and dwarf pea plants to illustrate how genes are passed from parent to offspring, the letters T and t are used to represent the alleles of the gene that determines plant height. In the P cross, the tall plant is homozygous

That the inheritance of each trait is determined by “units” or “factors” that are passed on to descendents unchanged called genes. That an individual inherits one such unit from each parent for each trait. That a trait may not show up in an individual but can still be passed on to the next generation. Independent assortment of genes and their corresponding traits was first observed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 during his studies of genetics in pea plants. Two identical forms one has two yellows the other has two greens. The principle of segregation and the principle of independent assortment. Some biologists refer to Mendel's “principles” as “laws”. Most of the leading scientists in the 19th century accepted this “ blending theory” that he had

Our hair color is determined on how our parents hair color is. For example, if both of your parents were homozygous dominant for brown hair, the probability of your hair color to be brown is one hundred percent which also makes you homozygous dominant. Yet, if one of the parents were heterozygous for blonde hair, the child would have a possibly chance to have blonde hair instead of brown. But in order to figure out why we have similar characteristics as our parents and siblings, Mendel decided to use a punnett square to see the different offspring. Instead of finding why we have similar characteristics as our family, Mendel tested this on pea plants instead. He crossed tall and short pea plants of the parents to see the first generation of children. In order to do this, he used an abbreviated allele code for tall (TT) and another for short (tt). The punnett square helped give us a visual picture of what Mendel was doing which supported Mendel’s Law of Dominance.

revolutionizing medicine and treating disease. It is believed that Gene Therapy holds the key to

Dominance and co-dominance was discovered by Gregor Mendel when he found that if two parents with different variations of a similar trait were cross bred, the offspring would only display one of these

He reasoned that there were certain rules by which these characteristics were inherited. He guessed that each plant must possess some sort of unit that specified its characteristics. In fact, each must have two units, one from each parent plant. If the plant inherited two different units, then one would override the other. This was called the dominant unit, and the one that was overridden was called the recessive unit. Mendel's theories were not discovered till 1900, and it began the science called genetics , the study of a physical inheritance. From this name, Mendel's units were changed into genes.