Genetic Therapy And Its Effect On Our Understanding Of...

 ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬Throughout the duration of humanity, illnesses have affected millions of lives. To combat these viruses, the study of medicine was born and since quality of life has improved drastically. From simple herbalism used by ancient apothecaries and shamans, all the way up to advanced synthetic antibiotic tablets used today, medicine is evolving. As such this snowball effect in our understanding of anatomy and medicine seems to continue in its upward trend as scientists are beginning to experiment with ‘Genetic Therapy’, altering genes in order to cure once incurable genetic diseases such as many types of cancer. While the promising experimental tenure of this miracle therapy is promising, we must consider the practical, economical, moral and†¦show more content†¦A healthy human person has 2 copies of each chromosome, one from their genetic father and one from their genetic mother, with the exception being the Y chromosome dictating reproduction, found in m ales. When cells divide, the chromosomes within them do the exact same, splitting into multiple copies, unfortunately however, in some circumstances when these cells divide, the genes in some cases are not replicated properly, resulting in failure in that function of that particular cell. When the people with these mutated cells reproduce, their offspring has a probability of possessing the same defect as their parents. These diseases just a few decades ago were seen as inveterate and chronic, but with new advances in technology, Genetic Therapy has allowed the possibility of cure from these defects. Somatic gene therapy is a technique of genetic therapy wherein the ‘bad’ cells are identified and examined, and specially created cells are made then implanted into the body in order to thwart the effects of the disease, counteracting their damage. This therapy is limited as only the symptoms of the disease are controlled and technically the genetic footprint of the disease is still present and if the patient were to reproduce, the offspring would still possess a chance of retaining the mutation. Somatic genetic therapy is split into two groups: ex vivo gene therapy and in vivo gene therapy. Ex vivo genetic therapy is a technique where healthy cells are extracted