preview

Genetically Engineering Embryos Should Begin

Good Essays
Open Document
According to BBC News, the discussion about genetically engineering embryos should begin. With the increased technology that has been introduced in the past couple of years, changing a fetus’s genes and creating “designer babies” could become a possibility for parents (Gallagher 1). When these breakthroughs were published, there was an immediate uproar about whether changing one’s baby’s genes is ethical. The events that have led to this technology, and the technology itself, are intriguing to many genetic scientists around the world. The discoveries that Gregor Mendel, also known as the “Father of Modern Genetics,” made when he experimented with different genes of pea plants have made editing the genes of people possible. Mendel coined…show more content…
Watson and Crick used Franklin’s photo to create a model of DNA and ended up receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. Watson and Crick never gave Rosalind Franklin the credit that she deserved for aiding in their discovery of the structure of DNA (Maddox). Gregor Mendel, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Francis Crick made significant contributions to the scientific community, and have made genetic engineering possible. Genetic engineering is defined as the process of deliberately modifying the characteristics of an organism by changing its genetic material. Genetic engineering is mainly done with Germline Therapy through a technique called Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). CRISPR is an immune system that protects bacterial cells from being attacked by viruses by destroying the genetic material of the virus. Without its genetic material, the virus cannot replicate anymore, therefore protecting the body’s cells from being constantly attacked by different viruses. To use the CRISPR technology with genetics, scientists create short RNA molecules that correspond to sections of DNA (Pak 3).
Then, like in the targeting step of the bacterial system, this ‘guide RNA’ shuttles molecular machinery to the intended DNA target. Once localized to the DNA region of interest, the molecular machinery can silence a gene or even change the sequence
Get Access
Related
Get Access