The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project w

Question

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the sequence of nucleotide base pairs which make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. Some people advocate the use of this knowledge to ultimately develop gene therapy. The goal of gene therapy would be to find alleles that are “faulty” and to correct them with normal alleles. Ideally, to “fix” every cell in an individual, this process would need to occur in embryos. Presume a couple found out their embryo has a gene mutation that has a high success rate of causing cancer later on in the baby’s life. Would you advocate the use of gene therapy in the embryo to correct the problem before the child was ever born? What if the embryo did not appear likely to develop a genetic disease, but the parents decided that they would really prefer that their child have blue eyes as opposed to brown? Would you advocate the use of gene therapy in this case? Should the use of this therapy be limited? Who should decide those limits?

Explanation / Answer

Personally, I wouldn’t advocate to go for gene therapy due one very simple reason and the reason is lack of assurance that gene therapy will rectify the problem. Moreover, if there is flaw in report or tomorrow medical science develop a full proof technology to combat the tumor than how shall be a wise to decision to go?

Next issue is concern with the cosmetic value, and I don’t think anyone would like to go for it and this could much easy to answer this question than previous one. There is no thumb rule which state that blue eye is better than brown. Furthermore, what is success guarantee of result? Of course, it won’t be 100%. Additionally, who are parent to decide, what the coming kid should like?

Yes, the application of gene therapy must be limited. And this limitation should be decided by the government, else how enforcement can be assured?

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