What Makes A Human Dna Can Make Us Better, Or Hurt Us?

The altering of human genes could save lives. You could cure cystic fibrosis or alzheimer's. This would save the lives of many (Doc. 3). This technology could also give you children with specific traits of your choice. Also, this engineering can leave people painfree. This is not good because they can’t detect danger. As a plus side, scientists will eventually take the gene that causes this and help cure those with chronic long lasting pains (Doc. 2). This would make more people happy and healthy across the nation! Eventually we could go so far as to make a genetically engineered nation. As you can see, Genetic Engineering also could have a positive effect on

DNA are like legos, they work together to build the traits of living things. They are the building blocks of the body. Many scientists today have been figuring out different ways to manipulate, change, add, and subtract genes from the DNA in living things; this is process is called genetic engineering. Some of the living things being experimented on are live people, plants, and animals. Today scientists are debating on the morals of genetic engineering due to what the community thinks of it, because of the christian 's viewpoint of genetic engineering. To some christians it may pose a threat to their, but to others it may be a blessing or a gift. Genetic Engineering is a growing breakthrough in the science community. “Over the last 30 years, the field of genetic engineering has developed rapidly due to the greater understanding of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as the chemical double helix code from which genes are made. The term genetic engineering is used to describe the process by which the genetic makeup of an organism can be altered using “recombinant DNA technology.” This involves the use of laboratory tools to insert, alter, or cut out pieces of DNA that contain one or more genes of interest.”(Pocket K No. 17) Scientist have yet to unlock the full potential of genetic engineering, but the information and the use they have found for it today has reached farther than anyone 's expectations.

Used since the dawn of human domestication of agriculture and livestock, the basic premise of artificial selection involved early farmers selectively saving seeds to breed plants with certain characteristics (Evolution of Corn, n.d.). In more recent times, the aim has shifted from simply creating sturdier, tastier fruits and vegetables to being able to create as much food possible in order to meet human demands. Shaped by our modern global economy’s demand of efficiency, rising industrialization over the 20th century, and growing population, agricultural practices of genetic manipulation of crops has grown immensely over the last century. Taking a step beyond selectively saving choice seeds, the discovery of “hybrid vigor” by genetic engineers lead to farmers being able to interbreed

Already, the editing of human DNA is possible. Technologies like Crispr, which allow scientists to copy and paste parts of one strand of DNA onto another, have become cheap and commonplace. This has allowed for numerous advances in medicine, including the development of life saving drugs. Now, scientists are creating technology that could use entirely synthesized rather than copied DNA for editing. The Genome Project-Write (GP-Write) is currently working on synthesizing the DNA of humans. Within the next few years, the initiative plans to have synthesized all genes in the human genome. This would allow large rewritings of DNA, thereby opening possibilities for treating and preventing disease as well as creating cells and organs.

The lecture started off with Dr. Kitchens-Kintz discussing the importance of genes and what their functions are in the human body. For example, the fact that they are what contains the blueprints for proteins in our bodies. These proteins are then used for multiple important functions such as making up enzymes, hormones, and other materials such as collagen, which is an essential building block in hair, skin, nails, and bones. However, sometimes parts of genes get distorted throughout our life either from exposure to things such as sunlight or due to copying errors. These errors can can do one of three things: absolutely nothing, benefit, or hinder the individual. Furthermore, with the advancements in technology,

As mankind progresses through the ages there is one thing that has remained a constant factor throughout time, expansion. We have never ceased expanding and in the foreseeable future, will not cease. With this expansion comes a multitude of benefits and challenges. With a greater population comes the ability to accel research, and improve upon new ideas. However, with more people also comes a greater demand for food and resources. Up until the last 20 years this demand has been primarily met by traditional farming techniques such as selective breeding, which takes the best of the best surviving crops and re-breeds these select plants together to create a new and improved plant. This process however takes an

Imagine the possibility of eliminating serious genetic diseases from the world. Imagine the idea of treating, preventing or even curing diseases that are yet to be cured. Imagine the feeling of being given improved health and a prolonged lifespan. This can all be accomplished with the aide of genetic engineering. Human genetic engineering refers to the process of directly manipulating human DNA to produce wanted results. DNA is a simple but very complex chemical that has the power to change the world and has begun to do so already. Many opponents to gene therapy fail to realize that genetic engineering has great potential to become very important in the biomedical industry. Though controversy exists regarding the ethics of human genetic engineering, it can produce numerous benefits, which outweigh its disadvantages and side effects; therefore, scientists should be able to manipulate the human genome for the purpose of helping people with serious medical conditions.

Biotechnology prompts a fear that humanity is gaining too much control over the choice of human evolution and destiny (McLean 1). CRISPR, “…the new fast, flexible, cheap way to manipulate the genetic code of life…” (Achenbach 1) exploits from the natural process used by ordinary bacteria to fend off against intrusive viruses while Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins), a set of enzymes, precisely snips DNA. CRISPR makes it simple to alter specific genes, resulting in many scientists beginning to use this new form of biotech for many of their experiments. Consequently, the editing of the

Within the last 100 years or so scientists have many valuable discoveries that have benefited mankind. These discoveries include the discovery of genes. Scientists have discovered what makes humans so unique from one another. However, with this newly gained knowledge of the function of genes comes the ability to alter or change them. Just imagine in the not so near future, you and your partner want to start a family together. You travel to your local gene councillor to pick the physical and characteristic traits of your child. That’s right. With the knowledge that has been gained about genes, scientists can “create” the perfect child genetically. The thought is scary. Nature has always taken us down the right path but are we really ready

Selective breeding (A.K.A artificial selection) is a procedure in which humans intentionally choose which traits they desire of an organism to pass on to their offspring. Selective breeding is a practice that has been done by humans since hundreds of years ago. Farmers chose crops and cattle with beneficial desirable traits (e.g. larger size) and made them breed. Despite the fact that they did not know the concept of genes and selective breeding, it was probably noticeable to them that when two parents with desirable genes were made to breed, it was very likely for the offspring to inherit these desirable genes. This is now a widely used practice for all sorts of plants and animals in order to achieve offspring with desirable traits. The

Humans have manipulated the natural selection process for many years to preserve favorable traits in their pets, crops and livestock. Long before Darwin, farmers were manipulating heritable traits of their plants and animals. For example, kale, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are just cultivated forms of wild mustard through artificial selection of certain attributes. When compared and contrasted, natural selection aims for fitness to survival whereas artificially selected traits are based solely on what the breeder desires. Hence, artificial selection can cause some problem traits to predominate in a species. An example is Dobermans, a breed of dog. Dobermans have been selectively bred for a certain appearance. In the process, a genetic

Farmers are using different technology for breeding. They used selective breeding to produce animals that exhibit desirable traits and they get more benefit from it. For example, using breeding techniques farmers makes cows which produce more milk with less lactose, and sheep which produce more wool. Farmers accept this new selective breeding technology because in the past, farmers would use growth hormones to promote such qualities. This became problematic when residue of the hormones remained in the meat, leaving it with a foul taste. When researchers began to clone transgenic animals, it became possible to develop certain traits in animals, which increased the quality of their yield. When a farmer would like to raise the standards of a herd, the breeding process is very slow and sometimes incomes can decrease (Wilmut 23). Many times when relying on sexual breeding alone to mass-produce these animals, there are chances of breeding out the desired traits (Freudenrich). Transgenic animal cloning will result in higher quality meats and dairies without the use of artificial hormones. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released in January 2008 concluded “edible products from normal, healthy clones or their progeny do not appear to pose increased food consumption risks relative to comparable products from conventional animals.” After 2008, US Food and Drug Administrative agree to use

Selective breeding has been used for many years to achieve the expression of desired traits in animals and plants. Similar to natural selection, humans have developed artificial selection where humans select the most desirable traits instead of the environment, this is what’s known as selective breeding. But in fact selective breeding does not select for the fittest phenotype like in natural selection it actually selects for the most desirable phenotypes which may cause harm to the individual.

Humans have been genetically engineering organisms for nearly 10,000 years using traditional methods of modification—among these methods include selective breeding and crossbreeding. Though effective, these methods were unreliable and were only able to change certain traits. A lack of control over our genetic material proved to be a clear hindrance to our species; when harnessed, advancements in other fields of knowledge would be immeasurable. Once seen as an impossible task, scientists have been able to exploit genes and take control of them. CRISPR-Cas9 is a system that allows scientists to cleave off sections of DNA and artificially modify them by inserting a mutation into the place of the old DNA. This is exceptionally precise, whilst

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.