When RNA polymerase makes an unprocessed mRNA copy of DNA, the copy is called the ___________________.…
Crispin: The Cross of Lead, is about a 13 year old boy named Crispin. Crispin lived in a village called Stromford with his mother. At the beginning of the book Crispin’s Mother Died. Later on, he escapes the village because he was proclaimed a wolf’s head by John Aycliffe. He is in an abandoned village when he meets a man named Bear. Bear takes Crispin as his slave. Later on, Crispin becomes Bear’s apprentice. Bear teaches him how to play a recorder and juggle. They travel from village to village performing. They stay at a place called the Green Man Inn. When Bear sneaks out to a secret meeting, Crispin is left at the Inn alone. He goes out to find Bear because he thinks Bear is in trouble. Bear gets captured by the soldiers and…
Author’s use many literary elements to develop the central idea. In Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi, Crispin must conquer a quest to find his true self. Throughout the historical novel, Avi uses conflict to support the idea that sometimes you must lose everything to gain self worth. In the beginning of the book, Crispin must face the challenges society has put forth. For example, in a town where your fathers ranking, gave you your worth in society, Crispin was nearly a “nobody.” Crispin had no knowledge of his heritage, resulting him to be called “Asta’s son” and being seen as an irrelevant individual. Due to the way others viewed him, Crispin began to believe and carry himself with no self worth or confidence. However, once Crispin is…
On one hand, it seeks to root out the cause of diseases which have no cure, rather than only treating its symptoms. However, treatments vary from disease to disease. In the case of cystic fibrosis, the effects of treatment do not last very long, and in SCID-X1, the treatment has led to risks of leukaemia. There is an ethical concern that it could modify human capabilities, thus altering the standards of normal human life. Gene therapy is also a very expensive form of treatment and hence should be regulated effectively. Gene therapy has a remarkable therapeutic potential (14) and this should be exploited. Through effective research and regulation, gene therapy has the potential to cure genetic diseases, eliminate any possible side effects and usher in a new standard of…
Genetic modification is becoming closer and closer to an everyday possibility. With this possibility comes a whirlwind of possible effects, both positive and negative. There has been a history of opposition towards these technologies, oftentimes because of fear that the capabilities would be abused. However, the potential that newborns could be born free of hereditary diseases outweighs the fear of “designer babies”.…
Human genetic engineering is the process by which the human genome is being modified and manipulated in order to remove or select certain genes. Moreover, traits that are desirable can be selected, and preventing the genetic causes of diseases is possible. Human genetic engineering, as a new field, has raised a lot of questions and ethical issues. I argue about where we should put the limits for our genetic editing. Should we just use it to prevent harmful diseases or can we carry on with the modification and choosing the desirable traits of our future generations? Who decides? Who has the right to object? I will try my best to provide reasonable answers to those questions throughout my series of blogs, based on scientific articles that talk about its controversial and ethical aspects.…
Modifying genes could be a way of preventing unwanted traits or enhance characteristics (Against Designer Babies, Sheldon Krimsky). Unfortunately, CRISPR is a first generation tool, so there is no possibility no damage will be done to the baby. As well as no security, the baby will not have any life-threatening defects, as it is known that “curing” one disease causes another. In fact, this will create a bad relationship between parents and children (The Ethnic of ‘Designer Babies’, Tia Ghose), since the children have no choice in being modified. Using babies to alter their characteristics is using them as science experiments since there are over one hundred genes that account for each trait and fifty genes account for three percent of one gene (Against Designer Babies, Sheldon Krimsky). With many parents willing to allow these experimentations to occur on their baby, it will come at a huge…
CRISPR technology is a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes. It allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and specialized stretches of the DNA. With this new technology called CRISPR, Designer Babies are even closer than ever. If they are closer than ever what does that mean for…
CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” and is used to “revolutionize the field of genome editing” (Doudna). This is a very controversial subject because there are two sides that people are on and debating about. The first side supports this system because it says that you can genetically change a person’s genes so that if they have a disease or mutation, they can be cured. However, many people are supporting the second side as well. This side or the second side says that you can genetically modify your babies to how you would like them and create the baby you want.…
No matter what, these diseases will still spread until there is a cure, most likely not even then. Is this really a bad thing? This child went from an 40 to 80% chance that it was going to have breast cancer to… Only 12%, Stated in how much can we decide about babies genes?. This is great, but after all of the pain and stress you have over this procedure being done, and CRISPR possibly clipping one of your genes ( can lead to even worse diseases; cystic fiber and risk of different cancer) You STILL have a 12% chance. 12% is not much of a percentage vs. 40%, but it is still a 12%, meaning that out of 12% of people still would have breast cancer after the gene clipping, you may not think it would happen to you, but the thing is that the same 12% of people who got breast cancer from genes as well as people who got cancer through environmental factors, thought, I most likely won't get breast cancer now, but they get it . The most scariest thing is that scientist don't know how or why there would still be a 12% chance, so where is it coming from? Joy Larsen Haidle, president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors said “ it also caused a number of unintended, "off-target" effects on some parts of the genome. These changes could lead to other genetic complications, some of which could be fatal.” This quote includes an example of how side-effects of CRISPR can be more harmful than the disease you are…
CBS News airs a lot of news, like new findings in science and technology, entertainment, health, sports, and crime. The guest speaker was Eric Schadt who is the director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. I will be using this source to explain my counter argument on how Gene Editing can be a good thing. Gene editing has evolved into switching out one mutated gene for a healthier gene, instead of how they used to just discard of an embryo altogether. This is revolutionary because we can cure the embryo before it is born of a laundry list of different diseases, with the only catch being that they need to be a single gene. If it is not a single gene it makes it much more difficult because scientists would need to change an entire genome, this is not yet possible for science. The diseases that could be cured include Huntington's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, as well breast cancer. Not to mention that there is a hope that scientists will be able to help people live longer. This was an interview on CBS News which leads me to believe that this is a primary…
The human genome project, together with research on stem cells, will form the basis of most medical treatments in the next few decades.…
The science of today can create super baby's, which Huxley predicted by engineering everyone through conditioning. The debate between nature vs nurture has battled for over a century and half, as to whether genes or environment play a role in human nature. Steven Pinker a Canadian psychologist, says that genes are the reason for human behavior. Pinker reinforces his idea by talking about children, “[Anyone with a] child knows that kids come into the world with certain temperaments and talents” (Pinker, 2003). Environmental factors do not play a detrimental role in the development of children, the genes determine how the child will work. Some genes may cause children to have a bad temper, while other genes may make children behave. To edit genes was thought of as a game changer, to be able to remove unwanted traits such as the cancer gene or make people immune to every known bacteria and virus known to man. Today there is CRISPR or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat. According to Harvard University “CRISPR changed not only the way basic research is conducted, but also the way we can now think about treating diseases” (CRISPR, para 1). Humans can edit genes in other humans to remove genes that are thought as being unworthy or useless. CRISPR can be similar to Brave New World but because of ethics and regulations on changing and or…
The CRISPR sequences were first discovered in 1987 when scientists were studying a gene that is involved with Alkaline Phosphatase Isozyme Conversion in Escherichia coli. It was not until 2007 that they came to understand that it was an acquired bacterial immune system that fight against the intrusion of a foreign nucleic acids such as viral genes and plasmids. To understand how the CRISPR system works, scientist employed the use of bacteria Streptococcus thermophilus in their experiment. Several strains of S. thermophilus were grown at a bacterial condition, 37 degrees in LM17 medium. The strains of bacteria were exposed and infected with purified bacteriophages to see if external DNA can be integrated into the bacterial genome. Furthermore,…
Imagine a world where autism and downs syndrome are a thing of the past, and where there is no shortage on food for anybody. Over the years mankind has developed and improved technology to save more and more lives through the manipulation of the DNA that makes up all living organisms. However, there are those who oppose this approach. Despite the risks and ethical concerns, genetic engineering holds the potential to benefit humanity through both direct and indirect means.…