DNA profiling

Listening for the Public Voice, by Robert Cook-Deegan and Jane Maienschein, discusses the issue of genetic engineering and the ethical dilemma and how the United States, government, and people are interacting in the struggle of the ethics behind genetic engineering. The authors present the facts that genetic engineering has laid in the grey area forever, and still continues to sit in that grey area. Genetic Engineering will occasionally find itself in the news and the argument reignites but…

Identical: Similar in every detail; exactly alike. What first comes to mind when you hear the word identical? You might think of your shoes or maybe two animals of the same breed, but what comes to most people's heads are identical twins. Identical is a book by Ellen Hopkins, an American novelist. She has many published works, all that cover a variety of different topics, ranging from the trauma of being abused to science books for kids talking about space. Identical alternates between the…

GMO’s are foods that have been genetically altered to have the most desirable characteristics. There are individuals who want to these foods to come with labels while others think it is a bad idea. In article one, “Although Some GMO Sympathizers Embrace Mandatory Labeling, It’s A Disaster In Waiting,” by Jon Entine, argues that sticking labels on GMOs will create problems and there no need to for them. Article two, “Even if GMOs are safe, mandatory labeling is a good Idea,” by Mahni Ghorashi,…

Deciding Actively Listening for the Public Voice, by Robert Cook-Deegan and Jane Maienschein, discusses the issue of genetic engineering and the ethical dilemma and how the United States, government, and people are interacting in the struggle of the ethics behind genetic engineering. The authors present the facts that genetic engineering has laid in the grey area ever since it was first brought to in lab, and still continues to sit in that grey area. Genetic Engineering will occasionally pop up…

Nature vs. Nurture is a question that many people have debated over for years. Are people influenced more by their genetics or by what their surroundings are and how they were raised? Many people believe a person is solely impacted by their genes, while many others believe it is completely up to a person’s environment. However, I believe that everyone’s behavior is affected by both nature and nurture. Even though I believe both genes and environment play a role in who a person is, I believe that…

Fundamentals of Biochemistry in the Biotech Industry Maple Syrup Urine Disease: A Sweet Scented Killer Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD) is a rare, potentially deadly disorder where the body cannot break down the three branched- chained amino acids (BCCA): leucine, isoleucine and valine. These amino acids are used to build proteins and when they are not being used they can be broken down and recycled in the cell. The complex that breaks these amino acids down is called BCKD (branched-chain…

The Belmont Report (1979) was created in order to establish ethical guidelines and principles regarding research experiments. Over the years, studies have come under observation for following questionable ethical guidelines in their studies. One such research study involved experimental gene-therapy, which resulted in the death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger. While the treatment was experimental, the ethics followed by the researchers may have been more questionable than previously assumed, and…

Parents are the foundational tool for developing babies from their state of untouched potential to the complex human beings required for the existence of a harmonious society. However, not all individuals believe society should make parenting an automatic right. In his essay, “Licensing Parents”, Hugh LaFollette makes the argument that because parenting is an activity that can potentially be harmful to others in society, it should necessitate acquiring a license as other potentially harmful…

Bob The Blob and his dog Blobby were green cells that lived in a human named Tyler. It was very strange being a cell. Although, it was almost the same world that humans lived in, just different. For example, instead of roads, they had bloodstreams, instead of humans and their pets, everyone was a cell, just in a different form. Roads still existed and they were still called ‘roads’, or at least by the cells. If you were a human, you’d call it a bloodstream. The small world the cells lived in was…

Ordinarily, multicellularity means a condition or state of having or being composed of many cells or more than one cell performing differing functions. A multicellular organism should have cells that contain the same genetic information. Until now, information regarding multicellularity is still a mystery because the ability to go further is still not that sufficient. The reasons behind this lack of background are the “long ago” divergence from the common unicellular ancestor of the organisms…