• Question: Do you agree with modifying genes? For example, if you are able to blend to sets of animal genes together successfully, i.e. a lion and an eagle; 'do you think it is right or do you believe it is playing God?' If you agree, what would you mix together?

    Asked by Senkoh to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      Hi Senkoh
      great question – controversial topic! I guess there is a serious scientific side to this: gene modification is an everyday tool in the lab these days – it’s not Frankenstein type stuff, but doing things like getting bacteria to produce a human protein that you want to study. There is also a lot of work putting human genes into mice so that you can develop animal models of diseases.
      The second part is more philosophical: playing God. Well, if you take the Bible literally, God said that man should “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” In other words, mankind is in charge of what it does with animals. I’m not sure I agree with that completely, and I don’t think it answers questions about us modifying each other.
      The final part I think can be a bit more lighthearted. Which two animals would I blend together. I personally think a gorilla-honey badger hybrid would be quite good fun: you’d either get a 400 lb bad-ass monster with huge claws, or a cat sized gentle fur ball that ate leaves all day!
      Best wishes
      Richard

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Hi Senkoh!

      O wow this is such a tricky question for me!!!! (Fantastic question!!)

      Well… I am against blending animal genes. However, I would be in favour for knocking out diseased genes in an unborn child to ensure they do not inherit disease genes from their parents (or ancestors). I’m not sure if you have come across the “designer babies” article. But University College London Hospital delivered the first ever designer baby a couple of years ago (the breast cancer gene was knocked out). So, to answer your question, if we were to mix animal genes, then yes, I would say it is like playing God. But, if it was designing a healthy baby, then I could argue that it is for the better good, and God has given us all of this knowledge and skill to be used in a positive way.

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

    • Photo: Laura Newton

      Laura Newton answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      Hey Senkoh,

      Genetic modification is one of the things that the press has made sound very scary when actually no one is trying to do crazy experiments like you are suggesting. I don’t see what good would ever come of trying to cross a lion and an eagle so no I don’t agree with genetic modification in that sense.

      However it can be a really useful tool. The vast majority of genetic modification that scientists do is to give ‘plasmids’ to bacteria. These are little pieces of DNA that can encode genes of proteins that the scientist is investigating. This is one of the most important steps of the drug discovery process. If we know a protein is involved in a disease then we can test lots of different drugs on the protein if we can make it. So we get the bacteria to make it for us so we don’t have to test potential drugs on animals straight away. This kind of modification I agree with.

      Thanks for your question!
      Laura 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: Richard

    Richard commented on :

    Genetic modification of humans is banned in the UK and has been for a long time. The UCL procedure did not modify the genes of the child, rather, they fertilized a set of eggs in vitro (IVF) and then screened the embryos that resulted to see if they had the breast cancer gene. Only embryos that did not carry it were implanted. This kind of screening is legal and is used for other diseases too now. Interestingly, you can only use it to screen out diseases. Deaf parents who wanted to have a deaf child would not be allowed to use this method.
    Some people still find this technique immoral because it results in the death of otherwise viable embryos.

  • Photo: Richard

    Richard commented on :

    You can read about the types of screening and the conditions it is allowed for here: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/PGD.html