The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project allows doctors and scientists to look for any flaws in the human genes and DNA in order to find out if people will have any future diseases or conditions that could affect them. It will be possible for mothers of new born babies to find out the risks of diseases or conditions as they get older (1). With the help of this project, doctors can prescribe medication to prevent these causes from happening. An intelligent t and self-driven scientist named James Watson, along with his colleague, started this project in 1951 (2). This project is a joint project between the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.

The HGP started in 1990 with the effort of trying to sequence all of the human DNA strands. It took about thirteen years to complete this project in 2003. Without the use of advanced technology, this effort of scientific research could have been a fifteen year project. Everyone was very successfully at getting the research done that they were two years ahead of schedule and exactly under budget (4, 5). After all of the hard work these doctors and scientists went through to research biological material, their main purpose was to have the goal of understanding how the human genes are affected in order to provide better strategies and ideas in order to diagnose patients, prevent major diseases and any future conditions, and to treat them medicine and anything else with medical problems (5).

From this project, society will be affected in the way of producing better foods and a more useful environment. Food could be genetically modified from combing genes of two ore more different organisms to produce another product. This could help meet some of the challenges we are facing today. All of this could affect society in one way or another. No matter who we are or what we are doing some of these aspects of food modification are good and bad whether we want it to happen or not. Technology will increase nutrients tolerance, better ways of farming and growing crops. It could also help productivity of common food such as milk, eggs, and meat. On the environment side, chemicals such as bioherbicides and bioinsecticidse could be less harmful, and not scare people away from eating crops that get spread for protection from insects and environment factors (8). While this may help society, it could also harm, or hurt, us in the way of creating a much better source of health risks and unknown factors could harm human health. Major companies could dominate each other once they find a way to improve their materials and products. This can be easily done and we see this happening through several documents about these small harmful industries companies. This project could also lead to foreign exploitation of natural resources in and out of the country. Another aspect of the genome project affecting society is the use of gene therapy. There are different ways doctors could replace a nonfunctional gene with a new one to prevent disease development. However, because of the failed trails during clinical experiments, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet set this product on sale (8).

An ethical issue that relates to the Human Genome Project is the act of keeping confidentiality and privacy with important documents and records. The risk of a patient and outside parities is a safety concern and an issue of who to own and control such information. In other words, there are questions about sharing information on patients to schools, in courts, and even in the military. Psychological concerns includes to changes of one’s belief and identity. By going through these different tests a person change their perceptions about another individual which is a big difference than what was normal before going through the test. This also include minorities and outcasts in society; unacceptable people as well of any gender and ethnic background. In the clinical world the HGP deals with the standard procedures to do genetic therapy with a patient with little to no federal regulation. Also, preparing new professionals to deal with new genetics is an issue and knowing how to promote genetic therapy and surgeries to the general public. Knowing how to approach someone and letting them aware of something that can benefit them but also have the after effects is a risk. There could be a possibility of a health agency getting sued or losing any credentials (9).

Sources:

  1. Laura, King A. Psychology
  2. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wat0bio-1
  3. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/faqs1.shtml#HGP
  4. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/about.shtml
  5. http://www.nih.gov/about/researchresultsforthepublic/HumanGenomeProject.pdf
  6. http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/IE/Intro_The_Human_Genome.php
  7. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml
  8. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml#5
  9. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml

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