Discuss the moral and ethical issues associated with recombinant DNA technology

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Discuss the moral and ethical issues associated                 Emily Huntley

with recombinant DNA technology

When reading newspaper articles, surfing the Internet and watching the news, there is no escaping the issues we face with new technology and scientific advances. One of the most debated of these issues is genetic engineering and recombinant DNA, and their uses. Many people have different opinions and views on this topic for various reasons, perhaps influenced by their friends or family’s opinions, their occupation, religion, environment, or perhaps the debates they witness in the media. But regardless of this there are clearly many moral and ethical issues that need to be clearly defined and discussed before people can make a fair judgement. This is hopefully what I will achieve when writing this essay.

Firstly I must clearly define what recombinant DNA technology is. It’s the methods and results related with the alteration of the genetic or hereditary material carried by genes of an organism. This can be simplified as below:

  1. Identification of the gene required
  2. Isolation of that gene (this occurs using a protein referred to as a ‘restriction enzyme’)
  3. Copying of the gene
  4. Insertion of the gene into a vector (Another enzyme called ‘DNA ligase’ is used in this process to hold the gene in place)
  5. Insertion of the vector into a host cell (Process is known as ‘transformation’)
  6. Multiplication of the host cell (Also known as ‘cloning’, this is the controversial topic of genetic engineering. The identical copies of the original cell can be called ‘sister cells’. In this process all of the resulting sister cells are expected to contain an identical copy of the vector carrying the gene)
  7. Synthesis of the required product by the host cell
  8. Separation of the product from the host cell
  9. Purification of the host cell

I will now try to identify the moral and ethical issues people may have with this new technology by first recognising the advantages of recombinant DNA.

Genetic engineering can be used to cure or treat terminal or infectious diseases and disorders by removing the mutated piece of DNA from the defective cell and replacing it with a ‘healthy’ segment of DNA. This has proved to cure people with diseases such as cystic fibrosis and heart disease, and disorders such as Alzheimer’s and arthritis. It has also been successful for diabetics, but through a different method, Diabetics are naturally unable to produce enough insulin, so therefore can suffer from a particularly high or low blood pressure. Before genetic engineering, chemists would use insulin from animals such as cows and pigs. One of the setbacks of this was that it sometimes affected the human immune system. However with recombinant DNA technology the insulin can be produced in larger amounts, in a shorter space of time, and specifically so that humans can tolerate it. This enables us to keep up with ever increasing demand.

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This technique has also proved particularly successful in the solving of crimes with the aid of forensic studies. This is when PCR is used to replicate a single strand of DNA to give the forensic scientists more product to experiment with and analyse. They can then use these pieces of replicated DNA to match up samples taken from crime scenes by a process called electrophoresis. Electrophoresis is a technique used to separate molecules of different electrical charge. Under the influence of an electrical field, negatively charged ions (anions) will move towards the anode, whilst positively charged ions (cations) will ...

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