The Use of Recombinant DNA Technology Can Only Benefit Humans - "Recombinant DNA is DNA that has been mixed with that of another species"

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The Use of Recombinant DNA Technology Can Only Benefit Humans

"Recombinant DNA is DNA that has been mixed with that of another species"

The development of recombinant DNA technology is, in biological terms a very recent discovery. It was founded in 1973 by Cohen and Boyer, the first two scientists to successfully transplant a section of DNA from one bacterium and insert it into another using restriction enzymes, creating the first transgenic organism1. As with every biological discovery the most pertinent question is, who or what can it benefit?

The use of recombinant DNA technology is undoubtedly of huge medical and industrial benefit to humans. It facilitates the use of bacteria to rapidly produce enzymes, proteins and hormones needed to cure illness or for use in vaccination. It also allows the development of a faster more reliable alternative to the artificial selection used by farmers in the past to improve stock and so provide economic benefits to humans. More radically there are possibilities to alter antigens on animal organs to enable them to be transplanted into humans. It is therefore true that humans will be large benefactors of this new technology.

However, the human race