Human Manipulation Of Genetic Transfer And Its Biological Implications Essay

Genetic manipulation is a powerful tool that allows humans to selectively modify organisms. It provides the ability for humans to deliberately manipulate an organism 's’ genes in order to produce desirable traits. Genetic manipulation provides the ability for humans to decide which phenotypes to express, and which to eliminate. This typically starts with an individual organism, then goes onto eventually effect and entire species or breed.

Throughout our lifetime we are in constant change, many of those changes are ones that you don’t notice. However permanent we set a change to ourselves, one thing we hardly notice change is our DNA. Just growing recently in popularity is genetic engineering , along with its immense potential which can do very much for us, in the future and today. However, with all the potential that genetic engineering carries many people have begun to resent what genetic engineering could become instead of focusing on the great capabilities, and what lies ahead of its bright future. Regardless of what others believe, Genetic engineering will renovate the way we do things today, genetic engineering is a tremendous step to accept, and without a doubt a step

Humans have been manipulating genetic transfer for over 10,000 years since our hunter- gatherer ancestors began to settle in one place and started farming and planting crops. Those humans observed and chose organisms from natural selection to select and breed organisms that showed characteristics desired by them and this began the process of selective breeding. Selective breeding favours recessive alleles that do not persist in wild populations. Selective breeding is a process of increasing the frequency of rare and recessive alleles so that they appear in homozygous form. This has the effect of eliminating the alleles for wild type from the population and the process of domestication has become irreversible. The domestic species has become dependent on humans for their survival. It is from these domestic species that humans have selected and breed favourable genetic traits for their benefit, be it higher yield in plant crops, sweeter tasting fruit, and more milk from dairy cows or ease of handling stock, selective breeding continues to be used today.

The evolution of technology has been hand in hand with the human subjugation of earth, but the question persists, when does the use of technology go too far? Advances in medical science have increased the average human lifespan and improved the quality of life for individuals. Medical science and biology are steadily arriving at new ways to alter humans by the use of advanced genetic alteration. This technology gives rise to the question of how this new technology ought to be used, if at all. The idea of human enhancement is a very general topic, since humans are constantly “enhancing” themselves through the use of tools. In referring to human enhancement, I am referring specifically to the use of genetic intervention prior to

When you look at society today, it is plausible to say half of the population is affected by cancer or disease. Now based on the millions of people on this earth, this assumption is not one to be proud of. Day by day and year by year medical advancements have been in affect and so far helping decrease the number of deadly cases of disease. Recently researchers have made a major breakthrough in the field of medicine. Technology has become so advanced that physicians are able to detect disease present in genes inside a fetus before it is completely developed. Because they are now able to identify the gene, it brings up a whole new topic of altering specific genes upon our children to physically enhance them. In most cases, parents would choose to enhance these genes to have athletic or musically talented child. Now whether you think this is ethical or not is up to you however, I will be evaluating three articles on this topic and presenting the argument for each one.

As well as having the ability to alter plant life, this technology is also said to be able to alter or manipulate human genes. Scientists are finding ways to manipulate certain genes to reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, as well as depression. In the essay, Richard Hayes writes, “Last year Science magazine reported that a variant of the human 5-HTT gene reduces the risk of depression following stressful experiences” (185). By inserting the variant of that gene into embryos, some babies could have a chance at never experiencing depression. This would be an amazing feat, to be able to give a child a chance to never have to feel the devastating effects depression can have on a person. There are other disorders other than depression that could also be cured from the manipulation of human genes. Many children today are born with autism and Down syndrome. This technology could one day ensure that all babies are born completely healthy with no defects or disorders

Humans have been able to use the principles of DNA replication, gene transfer and gene expression (as observed in nature) as tools to manipulate specific genes towards preferred outcomes. An advantage of being able to manipulate genetic therapy is the ability to eliminate/cure genetic disease/disorders with otherwise no other cure. Humans are able to remove the genes causing the genetic disorder from the gene pool of populations, allowing organisms to live longer and healthier lives. Two ways of manipulating genetic transfer which will be explored further in this report are selective breeding and gene therapy.

This method was used to extract the whey protein BLG from the cells that would be used to make Daisy. There is a specific gene in the chromosome that is responsible for making the BLG protein and producing this in the milk. By using gene knockdown the scientists were able to target the specific gene that is responsible for it and to lower the amounts of BLG that is produced to a considerably lower amount. Meaning our human infants will not be affected by the amounts present.

In SNCT cloning process, there is no biodiversity because scientist are constantly breeding from the same traits in this breed of cows, therefore no new alleles are being introduced to the cow population and this has significant disadvantages on the survival of the population because if a disease or environmental change takeover, the whole cow population will instantly wipe out because of lack of variation in the population. For example of this can already see today in Cheetahs. In cheetah population which has very little biodiversity, the population is declining rapidly as the cheetah population is struggling to fight of a spreading disease. This is mainly due to population genetic make-up is similar so cheetah population doesn’t have any allele which has immunity against the disease so the cheetah population would likely to die from this disease. This conclude back to the Daisy the cow, this cow population is lacking genetic diversity due to the cloning as they are genetically identical of each other therefore this population has a high change of becoming extinct if the population become exploited to a disease or environmental change. From the processes of gene knockdown and SNCT cloning, the scientists managed to reach their aim of producing a genetically modified Daisy the cow whose milk does not contain much BLG protein

On the most surface level, human genetic engineering and human genetic modification are a new and rapidly developing field of science that deals with directly altering the DNA (genetic makeup) of a living human cell. From early science fiction to the present day, taking control of humans’ gen es and directing the flow of evolution has been a subject of debate for many people. Human genetic engineering or HGE tends to bring up thoughts of dystopian futures where altering DNA has unexpectedly resulted in horrible mutant humans that can’t survive and thus the human race perishes, but this is not necessarily the outcome. Since genetic engineering is an emerging field of science, there are still many moral and ethical issues that need to be addressed before continuing research. Atheists and theists both have valid reasons to support / resist the continuation of this field of science. For the purpose of this paper, it will be assumed the reader has a reasonable understanding of the terms atheism, theism, DNA, genes, genome, and how a persons DNA (their genotype) essentially dictates the physical appearance and abilities that person portrays (their phenotype).

Author Chuck Klosterman said, “The simple truth is that we’re all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement?” Despite Klosterman’s accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement. Iniquitous practices such as genetic engineering could lead to a degraded feeling in a child and conceivably end in a dystopian society, almost like the society Adolf Hitler had in mind. In the minds of

When speaking about genetically modified or genetically engineered organisms, an important distinction must be made. This new breed of technology does not use traditional means of gene

      In the past three decades, scientists have learned how to mix and match characteristics among unrelated creatures by moving genes from one creature to another. This is called “genetic engineering.” Genetic Engineering is prematurely applied to food production. There are estimates that food output must increase by 60 percent over the next 25 years to keep up with demand. Thus, the result of scientist genetically altering plants for more consumption. The two most common methods for gene transfer are biological and electromechanical. “Early experiments all involved changing DNA using bacterial vectors”(Randerson, 2001). Through other advances scientists proclaim how they can improve the human gene pool. All humans have

What if you could design your child before it was even born? What if you could cut out any life threatening diseases, make sure that your child is not susceptible to smoking addictions or alcoholism, and then make your child genius? Would you? Are you asking yourself how this could be done? Have you ever considered human genetic engineering?

Cows produce a protein in their milk called BLG and many infants are allergic to this protein. Two to three hundred infants are allergic to cow’s milk, and BLG allergies are seemingly a large part of this. Various organizations are trying to investigate ways to manipulate the genetic material in the modified dairy cattle with the main goal of producing milk that doesn’t contain the lethal BLG protein. Daisy is a genetically modified cloned cow and whom does not produce milk containing the BLG protein but does however have the gene for it. But the mRNA for the BLG protein has become nonfunctional. Once the protein has been manipulated the cow containing the modified gene is cloned to produce a calf with the same genetic material. This cloned cow will then not produce the protein. This technique is very useful to produce a herd without the protein to gather more milk. Because of this protein produced (BLG) this causes a lot of people and infants to become very sick and ill. Therefore by creating a herd of cows using the processes of Gene Knockdown and Cloning this would not only cut out the lethal protein of BLG, but this will also create cows that don’t possess the BLG protein and therefore creating healthy milk for all to drink.