|
|
Genetic Engineering Sara just found out her baby will be born with ADA deficiency (bubble-boy syndrome). The baby will be born with no immune system, and be forced to live a short, sheltered life with no “out-siders”. Sara’s baby will only die early if they can’t find a bone marrow donor match, which is rare. What should Sara do? Look into genetic engineering of course! “The idea, simply, is to inject corrective genes into a patient’s body to replace faulty ones”(How Soon is Too Soon?). Genetic engineering can make better food products, help cure and control disease, and has worked on animals. Scientists study genetic engineering for animals, to make better food and control spread of animal disease. In cattle they slip in extra genes to reduce fat in meat. In chickens they are developing genes that make chickens mature faster and have more meat. They are also working on enhancing disease resistance (Thro 41-42). Genetic engineering is used to understand the cause of disease, for treatments of disease and for possible cures for disease. Gene therapy is another form of genetic engineering. It is basically the same technology but it puts the genes into an unborn baby (Thro 70, 81). With these technologies, in the near future, if someone were to get a third-degree burn, doctors would just grow some skin cells in a container and then place them on your skin. Or if someone had a heart attack they could replace the bad heart cells with the artificially made “good ones”. What if someone broke his or her back? Scientists could grow nerve cells to place into your back.
|
