Cure For HIV

magine, 20 years from now, sitting in a cold doctor's office deciding the genes of your unborn baby, what color hair, eyes, speed of metabolism, height would you even know what to pick? Impossible you might say but in this day and age technology is growing ever so rapidly that picking the genetic makeup of your baby is closer than you might think. The technology is called CRISPR. This technology doesn't only have the ability to change physical traits, but genetic traits specifically genetic abnormalities and diseases. 20 years ago, no one would have ever thought we would have the answer to, in theory, cure every genetic disease from sickle cell anemia to cystic fibrosis. However, with great scientific breakthroughs comes questioning and

As have been described above, HIV can have a potential effect on immunological cells, which are important to protect the body from additional infections such as Tuberculosis (TB), Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and other viral or bacterial infections. An effective treatment is needed to reconstruct what HIV has damaged. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is a common treatment to stop the viral replication and decrease the disease progression, which may lead to a vast decline of the morbidity and mortality. The standard treatment involves a combination of at least three drugs; often known as a highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) where the most common types are Nucleoside reverse transcriptase

Day by day, an accretion of advancements and improvements are formed across the world. Prominent developments occur rapidly, like the use and creation of technology. Technology has and continues to create an immense effect on how we live our daily lives. Its use is ranged from how information is found, travel, communication, and more. However, the advancements of technology seems to interfere with the circle of natural life, life that is brought into our world. It has changed the lives of unborn children, whom are in the form of an embryo. Altered by a new technique and process of genetic modification, that is commonly referred to as “Designer Babies”. This genetic modification, genetically modifies the DNA of an embryo to achieve desirable traits amongst them. It changes an unborn babies development and future life. While it may seem that designer babies can be a positive life change, there are negative effects that outweigh, due to the fact that it goes against human nature; genetic probability, expectations, diversity, and religious prospects.

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, referring to the repeating DNA sequences found in the genomes of microorganisms. CRISPR technology allows scientists to make precise changes in genes by splicing and replacing these DNA sequences with new ones. Through these changes, the biology of the cell is altered and possibly affects the health of an organism. The possibilities are endless as this offers opportunities in curing deadly diseases, modifying genes, and changing humanity as we know it. Although bioengineering has been around since the 1960s, CRISPR is significant because of the comparative low costs and the ease of the procedure to

function that selectively infects helper T cells” (545). My goal in this paper is to show the advances

When the HIV virus was identified in the 1980’s, many companies began to search for an antiviral drug but Burroughs Wellcome led the research effort. There were three drugs being tested by other companies as well including, AZT by Burroughs Wellcome, DDI by Bristol Myers and DDC by Hoffman-LaRoche. These drugs inhibit reproduction of HIV and slow the damage it causes.

However, the concept of designer babies is still relatively new; thus, it raise concerns about the safety of this technique. Also, the process of designer babies has only been experimented on rabbits and rats, so it has yet to be tested on humans. Therefore, there could be hidden risks and side effects for humans that have yet to be discovered until after the procedure is completed. The issue of competence emerges because “patients must understand the treatment involved and the potential side effects, as well as the probability of possible outcomes” (Morrison and Furlong, 2014, p. 262). The editing of the genome is still a mystery as there could be unexplored territories. There could be the possibility of cleaving the wrong genes and as a result serious side effects may occur when necessary genes are sliced. In addition, unpredictable consequences may occur in future generations, so prospective problems may not always appear until the birth of the baby (Pang and Ho, 2016). Thus, it raises the risk of the emergence of new types of diseases or disabilities if genes are edited. It will be difficult to tell when problems arise during the process and it may eventually show up only once the irreversible procedure is completed. Furthermore, “the success rate of impregnation is lower than most would like, harvesting eggs from the woman—a procedure not without burdens—may have to be done multiple times” (Suter, 2007, p. 930). Women will have to undergo the risk of implantation even though it is not guaranteed that she will become pregnant as a result. The cost of this procedure is quite significant, but there is still a chance that the process may not work or is ineffective. Therefore, it is not possible to know the potential risks until it emerges, so it questions the safety of designer babies because there is still more to learn about the technique since it is still

Genetic editing is a fairly new topic of interest. This consists of manipulating organism's genes in a lab. There are many uses for this such as preventing diseases and giving the organisms, especially humans, their best chance. The government should not be able to enforce a ban on genetic editing, so this method can be further studied and tested.

In the first human altering, scientists used a germ line editing technology called CRISPR. This new technology is believed to be a new approach to gene therapy. This technology is used to weaken deadly blood diseases. The CRISPR is created to point out the material in the genes and ultimately stop certain genes at the DNA level. This technology was tested by inserting 86 embryos and waited 2 days for the results. Through this experiment only 71 survived, with these 71, 54 were analyzed. Out of the 54, only 28 were correctly spliced. However only a few contained the replacement genetic material. The CRISPR was used by multiple biologist as a search and substitution tool for altering DNA only 3 years after the first development. With using all the technology and by altering human genes this procedure cost $12,400 dollars. Although they have used it to experiment genes in the DNA, the technology used in this process is not completely safe and still in the beginner stage. A scientist, Huang, has studied the ability of the technology CRISPR, and how they alter genes called HBB. However they stopped using this technology because it was not proven 100%

In this day and age, it’s incredible to see how innovative technology and scientific discoveries have changed the world we live in. From the discovery of evidence for the evolution of species in the fossil record, to the role of microorganisms in causing infectious diseases, scientists have come closer and closer to understanding how life works and its interconnectivities. It is especially interesting is to look at how far science has come to understanding DNA, as well as how technology has evolved in such a way to allow scientists to manipulate and edit genomes and sequences. In this paper, I will be addressing human reproductive engineering via CRISPR-Cas9, as well as it’s link to designer babies. I will be examining the repercussions of

Human immunodeficiency virus is most commonly known as HIV.18 It debilitates a person’s immune system by destroying important cells that fight disease and infection. It can spread through certain body fluids that assault the body’s immune system, specifically the CD4 cells often called T cells.1 These essential cells help the immune system fight off infections.1 Untreated, HIV reduces the number of CD4 cells in the body.1 The damage brought on by HIV to the immune system makes it extremely difficult for the body to fight off infections and diseases. Eager infections or cancers take advantage of a very weak immune system and signal that the person has AIDS. No effective cure exists for HIV. Scientists identified a type of chimpanzee in

Since its discovery in 1981, the scientific community has put up with the struggle of finding a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the root cause of AIDS or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Although numerous advancements in combating the virus have helped to reverse the epidemic, there is still no known cure. However, recent studies have shown some results that may possibly be the precursors to eradicate the disease. One example would be the trials of a possible vaccine conducted on primates at both Paris-Descartes University and at the University of Chinese Medicine in Guangzhou. Along with finding a vaccine, an alternative method has been proposed in Time Magazine with altering the CCR5 gene in cells, which is

First of all, to develop a vaccine for this virus, scientists took multiple approaches. One of these approaches is to find a way to prevent new HIV infections from happening in the first place. An example of this is the concept of evaluating the bivalent Env (gp120) protein by targeting T-cell responses. This was by introducing strong CTL responses. Although this study, which is called VAX004/VAX004, had some failures and was suspected to increase acquisition among the participants in their study. However, this was of the first studies to induce HIV-specific T cell responses. Although the solution didn’t reduce HIV acquisition among the 75% who received it, the vaccine did in fact impact the virus strains. The final result was that

With the advances made in medicine, there are treatment options available for individuals who suffer from HIV and AIDS. The first treatment for HIV was a nucleoside that inhibited reverse transcriptase and is name azidothymidine (Coico, & Sunshine, 2009, P. 273). With the fast rate that HIV can cause mutations, drug resistance occurs rapidly and is different in each individual who is infected. Treatments are not affective against HIV if the particular virus is resistant to the treatment; however, more recent treatments have shown improvements where individuals can be on them for years before a drug resistant reaction is observed (Pennings, 2013, P. 1). The highly

A healthy individual’s immune system is able to combat pathogens, bacteria, infections and viruses that he or she may encounter on a daily basis. This becomes much harder for the individual once he or she is infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2015) defines HIV as a virus that attacks the immune system. The immune system is the body’s natural ability to protect itself against infections and diseases (CDC, 2015). When the immune system is damaged, the human body loses the ability to fight off disease and infections (CDC, 2015). The HIV virus is different from other viruses due to the fact that once the HIV virus enters the human body; the immune system could