Genome Editing The Modern Frankenstein - 929 Words

Victor Frankenstein may have created and abandoned a creature, but what happens when you start to design future generations? Any scientific advancement that can have such a great effect on the lives of people has a possibility to be misused. Something as large as genome editing can be extremely useful, life changing, and effect every future generation. Then again, with great power comes great responsibility. Will genome editing be the modern Frankenstein? Genome editing is still relatively new in the science world. It was only fairly recently that we gained the first ability to fix our DNA (Rajan). Genome editing is changing the DNA, which gives us the ability to change it for the better – which is not an easy thing to do (What Is Genome Editing?). In order to change the DNA, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are manipulated to improve the DNA (Hornblower, Reis, Robb, and Tzertzinis). A fracture is made in the DNA to modify it, in order to adju st the DNA to try to rid it of genetic diseases and abnormalities (What Is Genome Editing?). Then, a new sequence can be added into the existing DNA and be repaired (What Is Genome Editing?). This is the basic idea of the difficult genome editing. While complicated, once more progress is made and it becomes more successful, this process could work on a variety of diseases (What Is Genome Editing?). With such a big advancement forward into the future, what are the pros and cons? The most obvious pro,