Week 6 Discussion
Topic 1. Societal Aspects of Human Gene Editing. Read the letter-to-the-editor to a newspaper by Dr. Cox, in which he states an opinion about the use of CRISPR for human gene editing.
Topic 2. Societal Aspects of Gene Drives in Wild Populations. In the article by Zimmer (2017), Kevin Esvelt says that he made a huge mistake by championing the application of a technology that he now says is far too dangerous to actually deploy. In a post of about 125 words, address the following:
Topic 3. Pedigrees for Traits that are Controlled by a Single Gene. While most human traits are controlled by more than one gene, a subset of them are controlled by a single gene for that trait. In such cases, the pedigree can be useful in determining the mode of inheritance, such as autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, or X-linked recessive. The attached document contains the pedigree for three different traits from the same family: Trait 1, Trait 2 and Trait 3. In each pedigree, individuals with the trait are shaded. These pedigrees follow the usual conventions for pedigrees: squares are males; circles are female; offspring are drawn under each mating pair. See book for details.
References
Cox, J. (2017, October 11). Compromise sure beats division. Courier-Record Newspaper [Blackstone, Virginia], p. A4. Can be found here.
Zimmer, C. (2017, November 16). ‘Gene drives’ are too risky for field trials, scientists say. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/science/gene-dr…
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