Introduction What if scientists could create a human being in a laboratory with only DNA? Advancements in genetic engineering technology have made that a viable option in the foreseeable future. While “test tube babies” cannot yet be born from only lab equipment, there are ways that a child’s DNA can be manipulated in ways that can eliminate hereditary disease genes and mutations. Since the field is still experimental, this is what it has been limited to up until this point. This strict limitation has been upheld by the price of using biotechnology, which is not covered by insurance at this point. However, the science in this field is rapidly growing, and soon the technology will be able to be widely used by couples wanting to decide traits
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Mendel was a German friar, who specifically decided to join the church because it guaranteed him the opportunity to study science. Mendel’s work focused on plants, specifically the pea plant. Through observation of the plants he cultivated, Mendel was able to focus in on seven traits that seemed to develop individually of any traits; these traits included the color of the flower, shape of the seed, the shape of the pod, the tint of the seed coat, the height of the plant, the location of the flowers and the unripe pod color. After testing around 29,000 pea plants, his study revealed that one quarter of those pea plants contained purebred recessive alleles, half of them were hybrid, and the other quarter contained purebred dominant alleles. These findings steered him to make two generalizations. The first, the Law of Segregation, dictated that during the reproductive process, each gamete (cell whose nucleus unites with that of another cell to form a new organism) carries only one allele for each gene. The second, the Law of Independent Assortment stated that it is possible for the genes for different traits to segregate independently while gametes are being formed. These laws were later put together to create Mendel’s Laws of …show more content…
Called gene therapy because of its use to help cure illness, much of what we currently know about the implications of genetic self-knowledge originates from testing for diseases. Diseases were identified, and their genetic code was mapped to show how they appear in human DNA. This created a clear procedure for diagnostic testing with the capacity to test presymptomatic, at-risk persons as well as carriers to deduce whether they will develop a particular condition. These tests can be a life-saving tool for persons who know that a certain disease runs in their family, and can even determine whether unborn children will inherit the mutations that can cause hereditary
Mendel was a German friar, who specifically decided to join the church because it guaranteed him the opportunity to study science. Mendel’s work focused on plants, specifically the pea plant. Through observation of the plants he cultivated, Mendel was able to focus in on seven traits that seemed to develop individually of any traits; these traits included the color of the flower, shape of the seed, the shape of the pod, the tint of the seed coat, the height of the plant, the location of the flowers and the unripe pod color. After testing around 29,000 pea plants, his study revealed that one quarter of those pea plants contained purebred recessive alleles, half of them were hybrid, and the other quarter contained purebred dominant alleles. These findings steered him to make two generalizations. The first, the Law of Segregation, dictated that during the reproductive process, each gamete (cell whose nucleus unites with that of another cell to form a new organism) carries only one allele for each gene. The second, the Law of Independent Assortment stated that it is possible for the genes for different traits to segregate independently while gametes are being formed. These laws were later put together to create Mendel’s Laws of …show more content…
Called gene therapy because of its use to help cure illness, much of what we currently know about the implications of genetic self-knowledge originates from testing for diseases. Diseases were identified, and their genetic code was mapped to show how they appear in human DNA. This created a clear procedure for diagnostic testing with the capacity to test presymptomatic, at-risk persons as well as carriers to deduce whether they will develop a particular condition. These tests can be a life-saving tool for persons who know that a certain disease runs in their family, and can even determine whether unborn children will inherit the mutations that can cause hereditary