GENETICS: A NEW FRONTIER

Genetics are a part of biology that are basically the study of genes and hereditary mechanisms. If you have ever wondered why or how you end up looking like one or both of your parents, but sometimes, some people share only scarce resemblance to their parents. Genetics are what determines a person’s features. We all get our sets of genes from our parents, one set from each parent, even our gender is determined by our genes, XX for girls and XY for boys.

However, that doesn’t mean we will always have the same

features as our parents. On occasion, an individual can end

up with features or characteristics that are not present with

their mother or their father. This can happen when the child

or individual gets a recessive gene from both their parents

instead of a dominant gene for a specific characteristic. An

example, although a rather tragic one would be when an

individual receives sickle cell anemia although both their

parents were free from this disease. What their parents may

not have known is that they were both carriers of the sickle

cell gene which happens to be recessive and so they did not

suffer majorly from the effects of the gene however when a

child’s genes are determined there are many possibilities

based on their parents genome as to what they might end up

getting from their parents, and in this case the chances of the

child of two sickle cell anemia carriers getting both recessive

sickle cell genes is 25%. That number might seem low but it

still does happen. Although, this was just an example and

more often then not genes are not the cause of despair.

It’s quite the opposite in fact, nowadays with the field of

genetics constantly being further and further developed,

there are many bright sides to these instructions that we and

all other organisms pass down to their offspring. Among

them, and maybe the most profound would be genetic

engineering. This is when we use genes to alter certain

organisms to or cells to change how it works or what it

makes. Insulin for type 1

diabetes patients are made by bacteria which

have been genetically

modified through  genetic engineering to

produce human compatible insulin.

Note that bacteria are being used, this is most likely for the best as it avoids most if not all ethical

problems that may arise if animals or even humans were used.

Another use for genetics is genetic tests for diseases, this

method can bring up the probability of a person to contract certain diseases at a certain age. For example, a person can

be screened for his or her probability of attaining a type of

cancer and what age it is most likely to happen. However,

these are all just probabilities, it is not set in stone based on

the test and the data is far from complete for it to be usable

by the entire populace. Still this can be used as a type of

prudence and to help people get treated before its too late.

These examples are just a glimpse of what modern genetics is

capable of. As it is now there is still so much we don’t know

about genes and DNA, surely as time progresses the secrets

of this material of life will be further unlocked and put to

good use for the betterment of society. The future of

genetics certainly seems like a bright one,