Medicine?
Genetic Engineering has the potential to revolutionize the medical field. Many families today have already had loved ones who have passed away due to genetics related diseases. Genetic engineering can help prevent families with past history of genetic disorders from spreading to their offspring. Imagine a future where there are no children who have permanent diseases or even disabilities. This utopian idea is actually quite attainable and with our rapid growth of technology we have today this development is close to our grasps.
Mitochondrial Replacement
The United Kingdom health department has startled the world recently by telling the world they would allow scientists to create babies with the DNA of multiple parents (Hughes). The process that the British scientists have just developed recently is called “mitochondrial replacement” and it would be the first stepping stone of a utopian medical society because it would allow women with mitochondrial diseases to not pass on to their children. Only specified clinics in UK would be allowed to perform this process of genetic disease cleanse and if the process is proven unsafe it will likely be banned (Hughes). This indicates that the British are closely monitoring the technique. Although currently the developed technique is going through safety inspection, it shows great capability of reforming the health department.
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The mitochondrial replacement process
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Gene Therapy
Gene therapy is the technique of using DNA or RNA, which is genetic information, in drugs to eliminate permanent diseases like HIV in patients. Gene therapy was originally developed in the mid nineteen-hundreds. Although in the years of when it was originally developed it was first unknown whether or not it was safe, recently gene therapy has quickly escalated in popularity in Europe (Pollack). According to the article on the European regulatory panel of gene therapy, written by Andrew Pollack, “The European Medicines Agency has recommended approval of a gene therapy to treat a rare genetic disease” (Pollack). For this reason, gene therapy has an immeasurable amount of potential that it can solve many medical mysteries we have today, and thus transforming the medical field we know today. Asthma and other lung diseases are only a small portion of this technique’s potential, and with our constant advancements we have today, it even shows promise for treating cancer.
Amputees
Genetic engineering can dramatically improve the lives of amputees and war veterans who suffer from permanents scars. Paul Knoepfler, a Associates Professor of the University of California, stated, "In theory you could use those stem cells to produce almost any kind of cell and give it back to a person as a therapy” (Eunjung). Therefore, this means that stem cells can be used to clone a healthy area of flesh and replace the damaged areas. For this reason, stem cells taken from the embryos of eggs show potential. The stem cells can be altered to create specified cells to be used to treat alignments like blindness and heart disease (Eunjung). However, most religious groups disagree with the idea of stem cell research because of ethical issues it presents by using fertile eggs from fertility clinics. In result, a group of scientists have created a new scientific process that mimics the structure of stem cells which are called Pluripotent stem cells and the process does not use eggs, it simply converts regular cells to stem cells (Eunjung). Therefore, stem cells present an infinite amount of solutions for problems we have today. Despite the fact that genetic engineering is a small field and it does not contain a large funding, the community is rapidly increasing and funds are coming from all types of organizations hoping to ultimately attain the goal of altering the medical field.