Реферат: A Look At The Human Genome Project

insurance companies puts a severe disadvantage on the person who is screened, as well as

violates the patients right to privacy. If this genetic information is not safegua

rded as confidential for the patient?s and doctor?s knowledge alone, then the

patient can be labeled as undesirable and the patient may not be able to receive insurance

coverage at any price. This also brings up other ethical questions. “Does genetic

testing constitute an invasion of privacy, and would it stigmatize those found to have

serious inborn deficiencies? Would prenatal testing lead to more abortions? Should anyone

be tested before the age of consent?”

Obviously, many genetic advancements are to come of this research. One biotechnology that

will benefit from genetic testing is genetic engineering. It too, may have many social

implications depending on what is created from such experimentation.

Gene Therapy is one “spin-off” that has greatly benefited Gene-mapping. It

utilizes genetic engineering to treat genetic disorders by “introducing genes into

existing cells to prevent or cure diseases” . Most of the methods are still in the

experimental stages and have yet to be approved by the FDA. One example would be in a

proposed treatment for a brain tumor. Scientists would take a herpes gene and splice it in

to a nonvirulent virus. Viruses and liposomes have an uncanny ability to navigate through

cell membranes. The virus is then placed into a laboratory animal to reproduce itself, and

after reproduction, is injected into the human?s brain tumor. The virus is supposed

to invade the tumor cells. Thus, the herpes enzyme will render the tumor vulnerable to

drugs used to cure herpes, killing the tumor, the virus, and the animals’ cells used to

manufacture the virus.

With this and other ideas springing out from the “medicine cabinet”, many

researchers are optimistic about the results of their research. There is also a direct

correlation of the sequencing of genes and production of effective drugs on diseases which

may have different strands of defective genes, such as Alzheimer?s. Locating these

genes would be crucial to synthesizing a product to affect that specific location in the

gene. The director of the gene-therapy program at the University of Southern California,

Dr. W. French Anderson states, “Twenty years from now, gene therapy will have