March 16, 2010
Environmental Science
Engineering the Solutions For Our Modern World
Our world today moves a mile a minute. Everything from talking to traveling is racing towards instantaneous and the technology making it possible is evolving at an even faster pace. It makes sense that in this engineered world of ours, that new problems should arise from the lives we live and the environments we live them in. It seems like in order to keep up with the next new thing in every aspect of life we have to keep moving forward and surpassing the previously accepted end points. However, many people seem to be resisting many of the new technologies and fields of study that could solve many of the problems facing everyone in this day and age. I argue that there should be no regulations upon biotechnology, genetic engineering or genetically modified organisms of their research because they have the potential to solve many modern and developing problems in agriculture, medicine and beyond.
Lets begin with the basics, what exactly are biotechnology, genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms? Biotechnology is the use of living things and/or organic processes to make marketable products, genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of an organism’s genes, and a genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genes have been modified by genetic engineering processes. An easy way to think of these things is that biotechnology is the type of company, genetic engineering the work they do and a GMO is their product.
Some genetically engineered products are easily recognized like In vitro fertilization, recumbent human insulin and genetically modified, herbicide tolerant (GMHT) plants. In recent years some couple’s inability to conceive children, has come to the forefront of science. In vitro, which is Latin for ‘in glass’, fertilization is the process by which female eggs are stripped of their genetic information and is replaced by the genetic information of the mother and father. This process actually happens in a glass Petri-dish giving validity to its Latin name and its product’s common reference, test tube babies. The fertilized egg (zygote) is then implanted into the mother, or a surrogate mother’s uterus. This genetic engineering technique allows people who would naturally be unable to reproduce, to be ripe with children (in vitro fertilization often leads to multiples i.e. twins, triplets, etc.)
Another easily recognized product of genetic engineering is recumbent human insulin. Human bodies break down everything they are fed into sugars, which are then put into the blood stream and transferred into our cells for energy by means of insulin. Type one diabetics did not get so lucky. Due to a certain genetic mutation, type one diabetics do not make insulin, so the sugar they break down circulates in their blood streams until fatal chemicals are released. Thanks to the scientific geniuses at Genentech and Eli Lilly, type one diabetics now have recumbent human insulin, a mirror image of our natural insulin, made in a lab by genetic engineers.
A final example of a genetic engineering feat is genetically modified, herbicide tolerant (GMHT) plants. Farming is tough. Not only do you have to do all the manual labor of prepping soil, planting crops, watering and harvesting, you also have to deal with a percentage of your crop being ruined by pesky bugs. Monsanto Agricultural Biotechnology Company decided to take a stand, and engineered some of the first commercially grown GMHT plants. If you lay down the green for some Monsanto seeds, you are paying for the freedom to spray your plants with deadly toxins that will trample the attempts of Mother Nature to ruin your crop quota, because Monsanto GMHT crops can withstand the spray and live to see a riper day (Swingley 2010).
So if science is capable of all this what is the problem? Why on earth would anyone want to stifle our journey towards better farming, medicine and families? Well despite John Locke’s attempts at a government free of religious impediment, many people are not down with the idea of scientists crafting their dinner salads, children or health, for whatever personal reasons they choose. In fact between 20 and 30% of the USA’s population is against any type of GMO (Kwiecinski 2009). In Europe many EU state members have outlawed the widespread use of GM plants for their direct impacts of being potentially invasive and their enhanced ecological fitness, both of which could ruin their native plant life (Hails, 2002). However, despite many attempts at testing these theories, nothing conclusive has been proven (hails 2002), showing once again that it is hard to know what you don’t know, but that wont stop people from passing laws anyways.
As our science advances and our population grows, several related problems have popped up. Some examples are the daunting food and water shortages, food-growing space vs. living space and cancer. It has been projected that in 2050 our population and food demand will have doubled (Tilman 2002). That is a rather scary statistic considering that there currently is not enough produce in the United States for everyone we already have, to eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables daily. So how on earth are we supposed to keep up with those numbers when urban sprawl is already creeping into farm space? The answer is genetic engineering. We need plants that have more nutritional value, more easily harvested and that can survive in our changing climates, and there currently are none. We do not have time to waste hoping plants will evolve to our every needs; we need to assist the process. Regulating environments for the sake of biodiversity and scenery is nice, but don’t be surprised if in 40 years you don’t have any food. The next example is cancer. Why is it that as our technologies get more advanced more people have these raging diseases we can not figure out? Did people thousands of years ago get melanoma? Ovarian cancer? Or could these things be from the tanning boxes and laptops we created in the past decades? Well no one knows for sure, trust me I have definitely checked, but there is truth in recognizing that we are doing a lot of unnatural stuff theses days and somehow that has to effect us.
In conclusion, I argue that there should be no regulations upon biotechnology, genetic engineering or genetically modified organisms, or the research of them, because they have the potential to solve many modern and developing problems in agriculture, medicine and beyond. As we move forward at a pace unforeseen by those before us, we have to recognize that with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton), and that suggests we need to either revert to all natural discourse or keep ahead of the curve and explore every option there is to balance the scale. Biotechnology, genetic engineering and GMO’s are just our way of keeping ahead of the curve and using what nature gave us, to sustain our life styles and momentum.
Works Cited
"About the Human Genome Project." Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
Amunts, Alexey, Omri Drory, and Nathan Nelson. "The Structure of a Plant Photosystem I Supercomplex at 3.4 A? Resolution." Nature 447 (2007): 1-6. Print.
"BIO | About BIO." BIO | Biotechnology Industry Organization. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
BIO | Biotechnology Industry Organization. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
Endy, Drew. "Foundations for Engineering Biology." Nature 438 (2005): 1-5. Print.
"Gene Therapy." Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
"Genentech: Research: Biotechnology." Genentech: Home. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
"Genentech: Research: Genomics." Genentech. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
"Genentech: Research: Milestones in Biotechnology." Genentech: Home. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News - Biotechnology from Bench to Business. Web. 09 Mar. 2010.
Huang, Jikung, Karl Pray, and Scott Rozelle. "Enhancing the Crops to Feed the Poor." Nature 418 (2002): 1-7. Print.
Pearson, Graham S. "How to Make Microbes Safer." Nature 349 (1998): 1-2. Print.
Sharma, Cynthia M., Steve Hoffmann, Fabien Darfeuille, Jeremy Reugnier, Sven FindeiB, Alexandra Sittka, Sarndrine Shabas, Kristin Reiche, Jorg Hackermullen, Richard Reinhardt, Peter F. Standler, and Jorg Vogel. "The Primary Transcriptome of the Major Human Pathogen Helicobacter Pylori." Nature (2010). Nature. Nature Publishing Group, 2010. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
Tilman, David. "Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices." Nature 418 (2002): 1-7. Print.
Van ?t Veer, Laura J., and René Renards. "Enabling Personalized Cancer Medicine through Analysis of Gene-expression Patterns." Nature 452 (2008): 1-7. Print.
Wambugu, Florence. "Why Africa Need Agricultural Biotech." Nature 400 (1995): 1-2. Print.
Weber, Bruce H. "Back to Basics." Nature 445 (2007): 1-1. Print.
