This week in biology we started a very interesting unit: GENETICS! We started the unit off by watching a documentary called Cracking Your Genetic Code. This documentary prosed the questions: “how well do you know yourself?” And they don’t mean your physical appearance and your body, they mean what you are made of: genes. Genes are essential to life since all organisms contain different genes. Our genes code for everything in our body – hair, height, eyes, and even diseases. Diseases in someone can be inherited from our parents or there can be a mutation in a person’s genome. Genes are sequenced with a code made up of G (guanine), T (thymine), A (adenine), and C (cytosine). One change in a letter of a person’s genes can cause a mutation and diseases within a person.

The documentary did a good job at demonstrating the pros and cons of genomics and the effect’s that genomics had on people’s lives. They provided many examples that supported and argued against seeing a person’s whole genome sequencing.

One example discussed sequencing a person’s genome from birth. There are many ethical debates about this, but the documentary displayed a case where twins that showed symptoms of cerebral palsy wished they had their genes sequenced when they were younger. After discovering they did not have cerebral palsy and taking a drug that helped with the symptoms they had seen, the two had their genes sequenced where they found another mutation and was properly treated. Although this was one scenario that would have benefited from early gene sequencing, a child’s life may be affected if their parents were to know the health risks that the child could have from a young age.

Of course gene sequencing comes with a moral dilemma. There are benefits to genomics as they can may find a disease and get proper treatment before the disease gets worse or it can allow people to plan for a future with a disease they may get. Genomics may also reassure someone that they are healthy or other risks that they need to be aware of so that they can stay healthy. On the other hand, gene sequencing can be a burden to know and people may start only being involved with others based on if their genetic codes are healthy.

Although there are many ethical dilemmas with genomics, doctors have started to sequence cancer cells to determine if there is a specific variant that is causing the cells to uncontrollably split. One example was a man that had skin cancer. He only had a few months to live, but after the sequence of genes that was causing uncontrollable cell division was determine, a drug that only targeted the gene mutation was developed and significantly helped the man’s health. Unfortunately cancer cels can evolve to resist drugs, even those specific to gene mutations, but sequencing genes in cancer may lead scientists one step closer to finding a combination of drugs that will kill off cancer.

Works Cited:
“Cracking Your Genetic Code.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/cracking-your-genetic-code/.

Youtube, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPzid88oSFc