Intro
1.) Bioethical Question
Should the use of experimental gene therapy in humans continue and have it eventually integrate itself with the general public?
2.) Historical Information
The idea of gene therapy was brought up in the early 1970s by Friedmann and Roblin, they wrote a paper titled “Gene Therapy for human genetic disease?”. It introduced the idea of eliminating diseases by correcting or getting rid of the faulty genes causing them. Unfortunately, at the time the biological information and technology needed to perform something that required such precision was lacking. However as the understanding of what caused diseases furthered the idea of gene therapy did not seem so far away. On September 14, 1990 the first ever procedure …show more content…
They are inherited from parent to child in order to determine the characteristics that the offspring has from each of its parents. There are about 25000 genes in an adult human body. In each of these genes there are many proteins being coded, these proteins let the body function correctly. One mistake in the transcription of the genes can change the protein completely and change the way the body would normally function. Genetic diseases are caused by something unusual happening in the genetic code that causes the body to process things differently. The genetic code can be altered due to genes being deleted, swapped, or placed in the wrong place. Point mutations could also occur, for example there are base substitutions and frameshift mutations. Base substitution is “when one base is switched out with another base”(Swafford). Frameshift mutations occur when bases are inserted or deleted. They are called frameshift mutations because when they happen not ony is the codon affected, but so is the rest of the DNA sequence because the reading frame of it is shifted. Insertion is a type of frameshift mutation that occurs when “one or few nitrogenous bases are added to a DNA sequence.”(Swafford). This will cause the DNA sequence to be longer than it should be. Another type of point mutation is deletion which is when “one or a few bases are removed”(Swafford). This will cause the DNA sequence to be shorter than usual. These small changes to the genes could cause major problems. For example they are the reason for 4,000 known diseases. This includes cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s disease. They are caused by a small mistake made when the genes were transcribed. Since these are genetic diseases it also means that they will most likely be passed down from generation to
1.) Bioethical Question
Should the use of experimental gene therapy in humans continue and have it eventually integrate itself with the general public?
2.) Historical Information
The idea of gene therapy was brought up in the early 1970s by Friedmann and Roblin, they wrote a paper titled “Gene Therapy for human genetic disease?”. It introduced the idea of eliminating diseases by correcting or getting rid of the faulty genes causing them. Unfortunately, at the time the biological information and technology needed to perform something that required such precision was lacking. However as the understanding of what caused diseases furthered the idea of gene therapy did not seem so far away. On September 14, 1990 the first ever procedure …show more content…
They are inherited from parent to child in order to determine the characteristics that the offspring has from each of its parents. There are about 25000 genes in an adult human body. In each of these genes there are many proteins being coded, these proteins let the body function correctly. One mistake in the transcription of the genes can change the protein completely and change the way the body would normally function. Genetic diseases are caused by something unusual happening in the genetic code that causes the body to process things differently. The genetic code can be altered due to genes being deleted, swapped, or placed in the wrong place. Point mutations could also occur, for example there are base substitutions and frameshift mutations. Base substitution is “when one base is switched out with another base”(Swafford). Frameshift mutations occur when bases are inserted or deleted. They are called frameshift mutations because when they happen not ony is the codon affected, but so is the rest of the DNA sequence because the reading frame of it is shifted. Insertion is a type of frameshift mutation that occurs when “one or few nitrogenous bases are added to a DNA sequence.”(Swafford). This will cause the DNA sequence to be longer than it should be. Another type of point mutation is deletion which is when “one or a few bases are removed”(Swafford). This will cause the DNA sequence to be shorter than usual. These small changes to the genes could cause major problems. For example they are the reason for 4,000 known diseases. This includes cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s disease. They are caused by a small mistake made when the genes were transcribed. Since these are genetic diseases it also means that they will most likely be passed down from generation to