DNA tinkering has become viral now that the technology is cheaper and more accessible. Anyone can perform gene editing in their homes. This, however, has led to misfires. For example, a biotech executive injected himself with a herpes treatment that was supposed to cure him, but it ended up increasing the amount of virus in his system. This is dangerous because of the fact that anyone, especially non-scientists, can gene edit and not know what will happen; things can go drastically wrong. Or, even worse, they can create a bioweapon. The University of Alberta already created horsepox, a relative of smallpox. Experts fear that the more skill amateur biologists acquire, the more they will be a threat because of the increase in today's world abuse.
I believe that everyone should have the right to experiment on genes, but at the same time, I believe that only biologists/experts should because of how dangerous it is to create new DNAs. People might also use it for the wrong reasons.
Wow. I never thought of the possibility of amateur scientists creating a bio-weapon. Unleashing the power of genetics holds many benefits and risks. I agree that regulation should be taken lightly, we saw in the Food Evolution video how difficult it is to undo fear mongering.
ReplyDeleteThis is super intresting that low level scientists can create a bio weapon. I also think that there maybe a lot of benefits but also a lot of issues with this.
ReplyDeleteWhen tinkering with genetics changing on thing can lead to a domino effect that may be just the opposite of what was wanted.
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