Saturday, 20 October 2018

Making Things With A Genetically Engineered Organelle

By Mark Thomas


Human beings are by nature fairly social. They live in societies. Now, given the social nature of the species, the societies they live in are generally composed of different communities. Those communities can be further broken down into families and friend groups. Even that can still be whittled down to individual people. But that is not where it stops. An individual person can be broken down into different overlapping systems, the respiratory, the nervous system and so on and so forth. But that is not where it ends, because everything in the world is made of up of cells, and those cells are composed of other organelles. Now, humanity is a species that likes to exert control over its surroundings, so they will experiment with a genetically engineered organelle or two to exert control over something that the naked eye is incapable of perceiving.

The first thing that should be done is to explain just what exactly an organelle is. Well, a person has internal organs, and those internal organs all perform a specific function to make that person keep on living. An organelle is much like that for a cell.

Take for example the mitochondria. Yes, there be many jokes on the internet about how it is the powerhouse of a cell, mostly by adults who learned about it in high school and yet never learned anything useful like how to register to vote or acquire their own health insurance. But that is exactly what it is. It is the part of the cell that turns energy into a form that a cell can use.

Now up for explanation is genetic engineering. It is when the genetic structure of an organism is altered to some extent. This is generally done with by an outside entity. In essence, it is fairly similar evolution. Except that it is done by a human scientist as opposed to nature.

There is a lot that can be done with genetic engineering. Take agriculture of example. Not only can crops be modified so that they produce higher yield, they can also be made more resistant to pesticides and even less enticing to pests. Then there the potential applications to it with people. The genetic predispositions to things like cancer and obesity can be eliminated before a baby is even born.

But, as great as that sounds, genetic engineering does come with its fair share of controversy. This is particularly endemic when it comes to its applications in regards to people. There are those out there who want to believe that there exists a cabal of scientists looking to create a master race.

Scientists may be somewhat hard to find. This is because those who can engineer organelles are generally specialists in the field of genetics. And specialists in any field are pretty hard to come by. But top research universities should have at least some of them.

Now, there are some ethical implications to any science experiment. Everything should be done safely and properly. The scientific method, the step by step guide by which all experiments are conducted, should be adhered to.

Progress is the nature of the world. There be those who can push that progress forward. They should just be given the opportunity to do so. There be those who look to stop them, however the thing about progress is that its not something that can be denied. It will happen, it can be slowed down, however it can never be stopped.




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