The study of DNA and the understanding of genes
has brought a vast range of new opportunities to help people,
but also to bring harm, and to change things for changes sake.
The pages in this applications section are designed to give some insight into these areas
and to give access to further information both in books
and through the web to areas that interest you.
Knowledge is not free.
It places upon those who know a burden of choice. Knowledge can be used or abused.
It can bring freedom, life and happiness for many,
but it can also bring misery, suffering and instant or painful death.
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What does the Future hold?
- We can use cloning techniques as
replacement reproduction
(We are first generation to experience the
possibility of human asexual reproduction).
- The same cloning techniques can be used
to provide genetically identical body parts
for
transplant treatment for
individuals with failing organs.
Assisted Conception
/ Reproduction
- IVF wonderfully helps many childless couples
to start a family.
- Yet there are wasted embryos;
- some new processes mix DNA from more
than two adults;
- the sub conscious attitudes of professionals
may lead to selection on criteria other
than just a healthy baby.
- Why is an individual’s right to reproduce
so important, especially in the face of
increasing world populations?
Prenatal Selection -
Who makes the choices?
- We can predict the consequences of
certain combinations of genes
- and decide not to allow those to occur
- either by not implanting embryos if IVF
treatment is in hand
- or aborting foetuses early.
Diagnosis - Who tests whom for what?
- Who has the right to know the results of a test?
- Some might wish they didn't know test results.
- When children are tested who should know?
- What if insurance companies and
employers want tests done?
- Does it destroy your confidence in the future?
- Does it make you behave sick before
you are actually ill?
- Suppose a leaky database yields information
to an insurance company, which then cancels
your health insurance with your own
workplace, and so your employer discovers
you are
"sick". Will you find yourself out
of a job or retired on health grounds
before
you've been asked?
Therapy
- Are there
really wonder cures
in the making?
- Change the genes of a pre-implantation egg
so that the genetic changes are permanently
passed on through he generations.
- Treat the deleterious clinical effects of certain
genetic variations, using somatic
genetic
manipulation (affecting on the individual).
- Soon we may be able to add or remove
gene combinations with germline therapy
on
adults (affecting future generations).
GM Foods
- what
are they and are they safe?
- Agriculture:
and the whole ethos of genetically modified
crops, and the potential
consequences.
- Animal Husbandry:
can modified animals can be safer food,
are there dangers when
flocks are identical?
