Genetic Engineering: How ethical can it be?

With the coronavirus bringing the world to a grinding halt, people have turned to medical science to create a solution for this pandemic and bring a swift end to a very disenchanting year. While researchers and scientists are working round the clock to produce a viable result, it’s still extremely difficult to synthesize an antibody that mimics one that would naturally be produced by the body. However, in 1973, a couple of scientists actually cut up strands of DNA, repositioned them and inserted new genes into E Coli bacteria, thus creating the first-ever engineered genes. This advancement took the science community by a landslide, and nearly 40 decades later, scientists obtained what is popularly referred to as the pinnacle of advanced biochemistry, a technology so revolutionary that it had to be…well, it had to be banned. Such is the unfettered power of CRISPR/Cas 9.

Basically, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Inter-spaced Palindromic Repeats) is a family of DNA sequences typical found in bacteria, and Cas 9 (CRISPR Associated protein 9) is just an enzyme that helps CRISPR work and finds its way to different genes. CRISPR/Cas 9 is a technology that allows one to edit genes, something which once could only be dreamt of. Now, there are a lot of good uses for such an era-defining technology, like altering entire genomes which cause congenital disorders like Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis. This use can also be extrapolated to edit genes of a human embryo to meet the parents’ liking, or to create a designer baby if you will. A genetically tailored human specifically engineered to the whims and fancies of parents? Outrageous, some would say. In fact, some would go as far as to say that it is an open insult to Nature herself!

Well, this the nature of such double-edged concepts. These are what are called ‘information hazards’. By entrusting someone with such information, they can prove to be harmful to either themselves or others. That’s why CRISPR has been illegalized in several countries.

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Writer: Aditya Rajan

#genetics#gene#dna#geneticengineering#covid_19