Friday 6 December 2013

There are many different methods of genetically engineering  an organism to produce a mutation  in effort to express a desired characteristic.  One specific type of mutation is known as frame shift mutation. This process involves changing the DNA sequences which alter the translation reading frame. Specific nucleotides are then deleted from the sequences mutating the genes to no longer express a characteristic (Fraser,2013).

 During reproduction, the female contributes one X chromosome to the offspring while the male may either contribute a Y or an chromosome. A new study suggests that the need for a Y chromosome may no longer be necessary for reproduction. Scientists recently conducted an experiment where they genetically engineered mice  removing their Y chromosomes, therefore making them infertile. They then injected the mice with two genes, Sry and Eif2s3y, which promote sperm production, and allowed them to reproduce (Genetic Home Reference). The success rate of offspring production was lower than regular fertile mice, however all offspring  were healthy and fertile themselves (Catania,2013). 

This method however promotes the reproduction of an offspring without physical sex between a man and a women. Religious scriptures such as the Bible and Quran state that a child is born between the efforts of a man and women. Information presented by this article raises yet another controversial topic between religion and science.  
What are some other ethical setbacks and how much do you think this form of therapy should cost if it becomes available in the future? 

3 comments:

  1. How much it will cost should be determined by the complexity of this procedure.However one of the major ethical problems which may arise if scientists succeed is how society will react to it. Even in today's world many people are still prejudiced against a lot of things, and a child born through this technique will not be an exception. Although it does prove that simple mutations can have a huge impact on our lives. An example of such impact could be observed in the article I've viewed, which's main point was that only two point mutations were enough to cause drastic changes in behavior.

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  2. Joy

    IVF and copulation require a man and a woman (norm) therefore this won’t be accepted by people (men may not be needed). This relates to my obesity gene article because disease/disorder (obesity gene) genes on the Y chromosome won’t be transferred to children. I think this will bring legal implications because everyone legally has a father. If children are born without fathers, this changes the system meaning there will literally be women who are single moms. If they can’t support themselves, the government then has to. The costs will be over $20,000 because the process of IVF costs approximately $12,000.

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  3. Religious texts do say that physical sex is required but this does not mean that infertile people cannot resort to other methods. This method does seem to be accurate, however it will only attract rich couples with dysfunctional Y-chromosomes. For example, In vitro fertilization can cost more than $15,000, this procedure will probably cost more since it is relatively new and seems quite risky. Since this article talks about possibly having a mutation on the Y chromosome it could be related to telomeres. Probably factors such as mutagens can cause this chromosome’s telomeres to shorten, thus degrading the coding region and causing infertility.

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