• Question: do you think any forms of genetic modification are good?

    Asked by DONALD DUCK to Kylie, Matt, Bex, RobB, Sam on 16 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Kylie Belchamber

      Kylie Belchamber answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Yes i do!
      So there are two fields where this is important. One is human genetics, the other is GMO foods.
      Genetically modified foods I think are ok There are no health effects from eating them, they are just food! And in fact, we can insert genes that make them better for us. I think the problem people have with GMO is that they believe that it is all scientists fiddling with genes, but we have actually been changing food for thousands of years! Carrots used to be purple, Corn was not anything like it is today, and you can actually make an apple tree grow 20 different types of apples naturally! We were doing this by selectively breading plants with the traits that we wanted, but now we can just do this faster and more accurately by inserting genes instead. The one problem i can see is that, if we plant them near to the original plant, then cross pollination can occur, so we need to be careful. I would happy eat GMO food!

      For humans, we can now make ‘3 person babies’ which is where the DNA from a fertilised embryo is inserted into the egg of another women that has had its DNA removed. This is because some women have faulty parts of the their cells called mitochondria, and wouldn’t be able to have babies otherwise. I think this new technique is great, and it is not 3 person babies at all, as the DNA is from the mother and father only. I don’t think we should be able to chose our babies features through genetic modification, but if we can remove horrible diseases, we should do it!

      Hope that helps 🙂

    • Photo: Matt Dunn

      Matt Dunn answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      There are many genetic diseases that scientists can identify before you are born, the kind of modifications you can do would ‘turn off’ these diseases before you even knew you had them, which would give you a much better quality of life.

      There are also many good forms of genetic modifications for plants, for example tomatoes have trouble growing in cold weather, but if you modify them to cope with the cold better, people in colder countries can grow tomatoes safely and easily.

      Science and genetic modification can only make things better when used sensibly 😀

    • Photo: Rob Brass

      Rob Brass answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Yes, I actually think the vast majority are good!

      One example would be a recent breakthrough in breast cancer treatment. They’ve found which genes are most likely to mutate and form a cancer and so can tell which people are more at risk. In the future this should mean doctors can give more personalised treatment to address individual gene mutations.

      Also, as kylie mentioned it can be very useful in food production. We can genetically modify plants to become resistant to diseases that commonly kill them, increasing the amount we can harvest.

      I also disagree with the whole ‘designer baby’ thing though. At a purely medical level, if we use to improve the health of the baby then fine. But if in the future people start choosing eye and hair colours, possibly even increasing height, etc. then I think thats a step too far!

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