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Course: MCAT > Unit 5
Lesson 8: DNA technology- DNA technology questions
- Gel electrophoresis
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
- DNA libraries & generating cDNA
- DNA cloning and recombinant DNA
- Hybridization (microarray)
- Expressing cloned genes
- Southern blot
- DNA sequencing
- Gene expression and function
- Applications of DNA technologies
- Safety and ethics of DNA technologies
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Safety and ethics of DNA technologies
DNA technologies offer great benefits but also pose safety and ethical concerns. The video discusses the risks of recombinant DNA, the implications of genome modification, and privacy issues related to genetic fingerprinting. It emphasizes the need for guidelines and regulations to ensure safe and ethical use of these technologies.
Visit us for health and medicine content or for MCAT content. These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video. Created by Ronald Sahyouni.
Visit us for health and medicine content or for MCAT content. These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video. Created by Ronald Sahyouni.
Want to join the conversation?
- What does this have to do with the MCAT?(0 votes)
- It's under Topic 1B - Recombinant DNA and Biotechnology on the MCAT topic guide(55 votes)
- The video didn't really mention the legal, & Socidiel issues of the HGP (Human Genome Project). I clearly understood the Ethical issues, but there's more than just the privacy and genetic modification issues.(8 votes)
- Although you should remember there are still possible futures that are good with this like getting rid or switching cancer gene albeit I see your concern but if we were afraid of everything that could go wrong we wouldn't get anything accomplished and mastered. Indeed I agree there should be some rules and precautions but aren't risks something humans have been doing since the dawn of our creation(5 votes)
- Ethical issues clearly talk about HCG.
Human Genome project collected the whole genome data of human.
What does this mean actually?
Did they just decipher 3 billion base pairs of a single human?
Or did they decoded the data of multiple people??(3 votes)- Someone answered your question already on Quora. Apparently it was collected from 10 males and 10 females.
link: https://www.quora.com/When-the-human-genome-was-sequenced-whose-DNA-was-used(5 votes)
- If you are concerned about the potential public sharing of personal health information including DNA information then you would be wise you study the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.(4 votes)
- What are some of the ethical issues of the human genome project(2 votes)
- If we're able to sequence everyone's genome and see what predispositions they may have for certain diseases (breast cancer was the example used in the video, or maybe a heart defect) these people could be seen as resource black holes to insurance companies and they may either have to pay ridiculously high premiums for health insurance or may be unable to get it altogether. Also, he mentioned it may be hard for those people to get jobs since they may be seen as weaker or their employer might think they will become unable to perform if they become ill. This also raises the question of privacy- what are insurance companies or employers entitled to know about our genes?(3 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So, DNA
technologies are really cool and they've provided us with
a lot of really good things. However, there are some safety and ethical issues that surround DNA technology. So, back in 1975 there was a
conference on recombinant DNA and they concluded that
recombinant DNA used for research purposes can
be particularly risky. And so they implemented a set of guidelines to try and minimize that risk. The NIH later issued formal guidelines for recombinant DNA work and
now they're very well regulated and there are lots of laboratory safety procedures to try and regulate the use recombinant DNA in the lab. So, one example of a
safety concern would be what if we transferred... cancer genes. So if we took cancer
genes and then we put them into a bacterial genome, then that bacteria could infect someone
and it could potentially transfect cancer genes into an individual. So, that would be pretty bad. So, that's one example of a safety concern using DNA technology. Another safety concern is how do we protect researchers that are working with recombinant DNA from being effected by the technology. Well there are a lot of safety guidelines in place to try and
minimize any exposure risk that researchers have when working with these recombinant DNA technologies. So some ethical issues that come up... include... if we're able to modify the genome, then imagine that there's a pregnant woman and we're able to sequence
the baby's genome, and let's say that we notice that there's some kind of defect. What are the ethics surrounding the correction of that defect? Is it ethical to fix a mutation that might cause a cancer, for example? How do we know that fixing the mutation isn't going to cause some other cancer? How do we know what the long-term effects of genetically modifying
an infant's genome are? So these are all ethical questions
that kinda surround that. And if we kinda drag it out, what if an individual's perfectly normal genetically, is it okay if we put in genes that help, that make them smarter or faster? What are the ethics surrounding that? So those are some ethical issues. So that would be genetic modification. So another ethical concern
that has been brought up is we're able to genetically
fingerprint individuals. So forensic scientists
are able to pinpoint a suspect's DNA. They're able to figure out what individual left a DNA sample
at a crime scene for example. So, we're getting better
at genetic fingerprinting but what are the ethics around that? What if the government was able to track every single person that
opened a certain door based on the DNA that was left behind, or what if someone took a piece of gum that you spit out on the sidewalk and isolated DNA and was
able to track it back to you. So there are some problems
around privacy issues. So, I'll write that down
here "privacy issues". And with the Human Genome Project, how do we prevent genetic information from being used in a discriminatory manor? So for example if we
know that someone has the gene for a specific breast cancer then maybe health insurance companies won't insure that individual, or maybe future employers won't want to offer that individual a job because they know oh, this individual is
gonna get breast cancer later on, we don't want her working here. So there are these privacy
issues that come up with the ability to be able to sequence and modify a genome.