I’ve always believed that it would be incredibly cool if I could have an army of people that looked exactly like me or had the same thinking or in short have clones.I have grown up watching sci-fi, my greatest contribution to social gatherings is my discussion of the clone wars in Star Wars. But isn’t this all just fiction, it could never actually happen right? Wrong it could. It has been done before not on Shaun the sheep - but how cool would that be right? But to create Dolly the sheep. This is done by replicating genes.
On the flip side, imagine if all of us looked like one another, thought like one another and never had any contradictions to keep us going. Development takes place only if we question the existing knowledge and work on it. As humans- a very unique species- it is our differences that unite us. Having to look at our reflections constantly and never having different perspectives would make for such a dull world. So although it would be brilliant to be able to create clones we have to acknowledge that us humans should be able to be inimitable for we are indeed such an incomparable species. Now there is a similar concept to replicating genetic material that doesn’t clone our species, just improves it. It is gene manipulation.
Now what is this concept ? Gene manipulation- sometimes also called genetic engineering- is a general term used for any method that can manipulate with genetic material.
This can be used in various ways, in fact a more well known example would be gene therapy. Gene therapy is the introduction of genes into existing cells to prevent or cure a wide range of diseases. For example, suppose a brain tumor is forming by rapidly dividing cancer cells,the reason this tumor is forming is due to some defective or mutated gene.This is a more recent example of gene manipulation so let's take a little trip to the start.
The first artificial gene modification using biotechnology was transgenesis.This was accomplished by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen in 1973. Now what is transgenesis? It is the process of introducing a modified gene to a recipient organism of the same or different species.
Transgenesis can now be used to obtain valuable information on gene functions and regulations as well as human diseases.
You may have heard of the genetic disease Thalassemia. If you haven't, it's a blood disease caused when the body doesn’t make enough of a protein called hemoglobin and affects 100,000 infants each year. It could be fatal. However because of the information we know today about genes we have been able to prevent it from happening with babies. Here a small structure of the chorionic villi is sampled for chromosome analysis of the embryo and if found with thalassemia major the parents are given the option to take a medically smart decision. Diseases such as AIDS and Cancer could also be treated using this concept. That means that 9.5 million people's death from cancer could be prevented.
From all that I have spoken today I think we can easily come to a conclusion. Gene manipulation might just be our future.The possibilities are endless when we are able to understand our genes.We need to know where we come from in order to know where we’re going. One day any of us could be the future of this research and I hope that along with clones of Jango Fett we’re able to contribute to the world.
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