Download Designer Babies & the government

Designer Babies & the
Government
FIB
Lecture 5
Agenda today
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What is meant by ‘designer baby’
Current understanding
Future capabilities
Abuse of knowledge & technology
Germline vs Non-germline Manipulation
Ownership issues
What are designer babies?
• Lets start with the natural condition first
 To have a baby naturally we need two parents of
opposite sex
 Woman &
 Man
 The woman's egg supplies one set of
chromosomes and that of the man the other
 Egg contains 23 chromosomes - one of each size
 Sperm contains 23 chromosomes - one of each size
 Once fertilized the embryo has all the genetic
information it needs
 and it begins to grow and develop into a baby
Human chromosomes from a white blood cell
Each is very important as it carries information
Total = 46
Two of each
= 23 pairs
Karyotype
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One sperm is permitted to fertilize one egg!
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What are designer babies?
• The way the gametes (egg and sperm) are
generated results in a random sampling of the
parents genes.
– Suppose the father has blue eyes. He may carry a blue
eye gene on one chromosome and a green eye gene on
the other.
– The sperm will have a random 50:50 chance of getting
the blue gene, since there is room to fit just one of the
two genes.
– The same will apply for all the other 20,000 or so genes
which are believed to make humans.
• The exact same thing will take place in the
generation of the mothers egg.
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Outside =Blue Eyes
Inside = blue eye gene
Outside = Brown Eyes
Inside = brown eye gene
blue eye gene
blue eye gene
They can have kids with either
BROWN EYES
or
BLUE EYES
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Calculator
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What are designer babies?
• So the child is a random union of the potential
gene combinations of the father and that of the
mother.
• If neither parent carries the blue eye gene (i.e.
each carries just the genes for brown eyes), then
the baby cannot have blue eyes.
– *unless a rare mutation event occurs which forms the
blue gene
• NATURE can only mix and match just what the
parents have to offer. And here lies the problem!
• My wife and I wanted a child with green eyes!!!!!!
TOO BAD, MATE!
Should have married a girl with just green
eyes running in her family, and even
then………………………
Hang on a sec….
We may have something for you!
WAIT HERE PLEASE
Reproductive Research
• Advanced reproductive technologies
allow parents and doctors to screen
embryos for genetic disorders and select
healthy embryos.
– Take some tissue from the baby or its
immediate environment and perform genetic
tests
• This is the logic behind developing these
technologies
Abuse!
• The fear is that in the future we may be
able to use genetic technologies to
modify embryos and choose desirable
or cosmetic characteristics.
• Designer babies is a term used by
journalists to describe this frightening
scenario.
• It is not a term used by scientists.
IVF
• Advanced reproductive techniques involve
using InVitro Fertilisation (IVF) to fertilize
eggs with sperm
• in 'test-tubes'
• outside the mother's body in a laboratory.
• These techniques reduce the chance that a
child will be born with a genetic disorder.
At the moment it is only legally possible to
carry out two types of advanced
reproductive technologies on humans.
1. Choosing the type of sperm that will fertilize an
egg: this is used to determine the sex and the
genes of the baby.
2. Screening embryos for a genetic disease: only
selected embryos are implanted back into the
mother's womb. This is called Pre-implantation
Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).
Here’s a small problem
• As we noted the degree to which one
can manipulate the genome of the
future child is limited by the potential of
the parents genes
• If you have no genes for blue eyes
between the parents, then you cannot
select for a baby to have blue eyes
• …or can you?
Brave new World!
• If someone with enough will and resources
really wanted to have a child with blue eyes as athletic as David Beckham - they could in
the future.
• We are developing technologies to swap
pieces of DNA.
– Blue genes into the egg & brown genes out
• The recent sequencing of the entire human
genome is providing us with knowledge of the
makeup of genes
Or will the laws set by the government
outlaw such manipulations.
Watch this video clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN9
ep4B9Hw0
Germ Line Therapy
• In the future we may be able to "cure" genetic
diseases in embryos by replacing faulty
sections of DNA with healthy DNA.
• This is called germ line therapy and is carried
out on an egg, sperm or a tiny fertilized
embryo.
• Such therapy has successfully been done on
animal embryos,
• but at present it is illegal to do this in humans.
Future Potential
• Within a decade or two, it may be possible to
screen kids almost before conception for an
enormous range of attributes, such as
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how tall they're likely to be
what body type they will have
their hair and eye color
what sorts of illnesses they will be naturally resistant to
and even, conceivably, their IQ and personality type.
Baby to Order
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• One can imagine “baby
kiosks” where one visits
when one wants a baby
• Here you may design
your child from an ‘a-lacart’ menu.
• In a society used to
cosmetic surgery and
psychopharmacology, this
is not a big step!
Big Brother 9 tonight on CBS
• Laws tend to be influenced by
– public opinion
– the makeup of the government
– and lobbyists
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Where are the lines drawn?
Who formulates these guidelines?
What happens if you break them?
Who will be able to afford it? The poor?
Legal ownership of DNA
info
• Your DNA so you own it, right!
• In the movie today we will investigate
the legal issues as to who owns the
information carried by your DNA…
Video Questions 1. Who won the race to sequence the human
genome? And by how much?
2. Who is Craig Venter? What does his company
own?
3. Why are the indigenous peoples upset? What
was taken from them?
4. Why is the country of Iceland mentioned?
5. What did DeCode Genetics get from the
Icelandic government?
6. How much does a typical drug cost to develop?
Group questions
1. Would you like to have a say in the genetic make
up of your children? Why and why not?
2. What are some of the dangers of interfering with
Mother Nature?
3. Should the government and/or companies have a
say in your decisions?
4. What about your health insurance company should they be permitted to have a say in the
genetic makeup of your future children?
5. Where would you draw the line with respect to
engineering children?