The Pros And Cons Of Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering is becoming more and more prevalent in decisions regarding the embryos of future children. Future parents should seriously consider whether genetic engineering in embryos is morally right because of social norms, the inaccuracy and dangers of some techniques, and breeding the perfect child. This paper will cover PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis) and three different techniques that could alter the genetic makeup of a child along with rights and wrongs for them. PGD is the main part of all these techniques since the main reason of it is to diagnose whether there is mutations or genetic defects within the embryo. The process starts off by following a normal IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) process by exacting eggs from

CRISPR is a process that was developed a short time ago and is now being tested in many different organisms. The technique has been tested on many different organisms and cells including: Humans, Bacteria, Zebrafish, Pigs, Rats, etc. (Reis, 2014). Your genome says, CRISPR-Cas9 is a technology that give geneticists and medical researchers to edit parts of the genome by deleting, inserting, or modifying parts of the DNA sequence (“What is CRISPR-Cas9?”, 2016). The process behind CRISPR is more in-depth and complex than IVF since actual genome editing is being done. There are two key molecules that make CRISPR work and actually introduce the mutation to the DNA, Cas9 and gRNA (guide RNA). The enzyme Cas9 acts as a pair of scissors that cuts the two strands of DNA at a specific spot in the genome, so pieces of DNA can be inserted or removed (“What is CRISPR-Cas9?”, 2016). The second main key in CRIPSR is the gRNA. The gRNA consists of a small piece of pre-made RNA sequence located inside a longer RNA skeleton (“What is CRISPR-Cas9?”, 2016). The skeleton structure of the RNA binds to the DNA and the pre-made sequence guides Cas9 to the correct part of the genome sequence then cuts out or replaces the section it cut (“What is CRISPR-Cas9?”, 2016). The first step of the process is to design a strand of gRNA to search for and bind to a specific sequence in the genome. The reason the gRNA is able to bind to the DNA sequence because of the pre-determined complementary base pairs (AUGC) to the DNA. The thought behind pre-determining the bases in the RNA is to improve the accuracy of the technique because only certain pairs can bind with each other. The next step in the process is the Cas9 enzyme then follows the gRNA to the location in the DNA sequence and once bonded makes a cut across both strands of the DNA. Once the cut is performed the cell then