The Reasons For Using DNA

Our bodies are a complex system of bones, muscles, vital organs, water, and blood that has been built upon since we were embryos. What created how our bodies were built was on Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA for short. It is a system of an ever-complex combination of 4 different nitrogen bases that expand to over 3.2 billion combinations that are unique to ever living organism in the world. From this discovery of DNA in 1950s we have made a large jump in multiple fields. With One of these improving the criminal justice system and even revolutionizing the medical field for creating more effective medication to creating possible way of increasing resistances to many genetic or acquired desises. My goal from this paper on why we need to keep using DNA is not to change your minds, but to make you think that the use of DNA has great possibilities for the betterment of peoples lives in society.

DNA has been used in many different professional fields since first being implemented in 1986. One of these professional field’s DNA has been used in is the Criminal justice systems forensics branch. The implantation of DNA became a main part of the criminal justice system

After congress passed the Innocent protection act in 2004. This gave defendant in most serious crimes have access to counsel and post-conviction DNA testing. This acted to find the guilty member more accurately in cases with any source of DNA, but also a way to find people innocent who were wrongfully convicted. From this over 120 people between 2004 to 2008 on death row were found innocent of crimes they were convicted for. Even Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Fort Collins, Colorado used DNA testing to solve a series of rapes and murders by the same person. Even DNA testing was able to break through to the Green river killings cold case when a large police task force with $15 million in funding couldn’t. However, there is a negative side to DNA testing in the criminal justice system. The negative is that there is a backlog of unanalyzed DNA. The other issue is that it takes some time to analyze DNA.

The other major field DNA testing is used in is the medical field. One of these major thing’s DNA testing is used for in the medical field is that they use it to identify kinship between parents and kids. This is done by paternity testing. They do this by looking at the X chromosomes in the DNA. There a specifically 8 x chromosomes they look at. The chromosomes are “DXS10079-DXS10074-DXS10075, DXS6801- DXS6809-DXS6789, DXS7132, and DXS6799.” The DNA is mainly extracted from people using buccal swabs and paraffin- embedded tissues. They compare this DNA with DNA from two or more undisputable close relatives to determine the father. This type of process has taken an even further investigate DNA from companies such as ancestry DNA which has took advantage of current knowledge on DNA. This system has lead to a better ways of looking into a person family history and even finding relatives people never even knew they had a connection to.

The medical field even takes DNA into consideration when involving how medication will react to certain people. Scientist look at the proteins inside people’s DNA to accurately apply proper medication to patience. Such things looked at are liver enzymes which can make a drug more or less effective to certain people. An example of drugs response is how the CYP2D6 only react with twenty five percent of medication. The CYP2D6 has multiple copies within one person’s body with some of them causing medications to be processed very fast. The Food and Drug administration (FDA) oversee drug safety in the United states and provide the labels on over 200 medication. These labels include different dosages, side effects, and different effect towards people with certain genes. The NIH even funds scientist involved in pharmacogenomics to study how medication react with Asthma, Depression, and Cancer. The NIH want to further research in pharmacogenomics for people in society.

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Another way the medical field has used DNA to a higher form is by determining the different blood types each person has. The process of figuring out blood types is done through a test called paternity test. They look at the ABO gene that refers to blood types A, B and O. This is determined by the certain combinations of A’s, B’s, or O’s. Such as A blood types had a code with one A alleles or combination of A and O. Same thing for B blood types and O blood types. The discovery of blood types had created a way for improving peoples survivability chances with blood transfusions. This could not have been possible if we did not look at the human DNA.

One of they biggest things happening with DNA is research going into genetic editing. The purpose of gene editing is to improve the understanding of genes and find better ways to treat genetic or acquired diseases. The process involves using new quicker editing methods of the human genome. This is due to genome editing being able mimic that of cells repair system that allows this genetic editing to occur. Several different types of genome editing are TALENs editing, ZFNs editing, and the most common type of editing is CRISPER-Cas9. The CRISPER-Cas9 is gene editing that can be involved in human reproduction. The first use of Genome editing was first used in clinics in 2014 on trying to counter act HIV-1 by use of the cell splitting process known as ZFNs. They counter acted this by disrupting the CCR5 gene within the DNA. Then another trial was in 2017 were the NIH used ZFNs to try and cure Huntington’s disease by adding more enzymes. The current thing the NIH is working on is to cure the sickle cells and hive.

There are concerns with the genome editing by scientific and ethical reasons. One major reason is possible violations of the “Dickey-Wicker amendment that prohibits testing on creating human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed.” Another reason is the alteration to the genome that can affect the next generation without their consent and the lack of compelling information to study on embryos. The NIH did release a statement on not funding any use of genome editing in embryos but did release a statement saying that genome editing on embryos should be allowed only with robust and regulatory framework. However, chines scientist He Jiankui created the first genome edited babies in November 2018. From this creation the Chinese government arrested He Jiankui. There is no detail at the time on the current state of these babies besides knowing that they were born and are healthy. After this event on June fourth, 2019 the science continued to vote no to continue the ban on genome editing. However, did allow the continued work of genome therapy.

Gene therapy is a experimental method to use genes to treat and prevent diseases. The purpose of the process is to use genes as treatment instead of using drugs or surgery to counteract diseases. The way gene therapy works is by scientist injecting cells into vectors (vectors are sometimes viruses) to deliver genes in the body by infecting cells. This process is meant to compensate for abnormal genes in the body. Gene therapy cell cannot be passed from parents to their children. This process is still in clinical trials.

However, this process has shown to have a higher risk then genome editing. Research has shown some major risk of gene therapy is higher risks of toxicity, inflammation, cancer, and sometimes unpredictable issues. The NIH does have a important role in the safety of gene therapy. Any clinical trials must be reviewed by the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and must include protocol of each trial. For any clinical trials to be carried out the institutional review board and the institutional biosafety committee must both approve it.

We need to keep using DNA within the United States because of the high effects it has on multiple fields. Such as DNA being fully implemented in the criminal justice system and has improved the accuracy of finding guilty party members and solving cold cases. Even the Medical field uses DNA in a large portion of it. By using DNA to discover how medications react with people and even using it to identify people’s family members or even unknown relative through DNA. However, we are holding ourselves back from evolving the use of DNA in science. This is especially relevant to the lack of trust with genome editing even though the only source of evidence has been that of good results showing. We need to keep using DNA and expand upon it for these such reason.

References

1. Leahy, P. (2008). Using DNA and Forensic Science to Catch the Guilty and Protect the Innocent. Federal Sentencing Reporter,20(5), 354-355. doi:10.1525/fsr.2008.20.5.354
2. ADVANCING JUSTICE THROUGH DNA TECHNOLOGY: USING DNA TO SOLVE CRIMES. (2017, March 7). Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/archives/ag/advancing-justice-through-dna-technology-using-dna-solve-crimes.
3. Baron, C. (n.d.). ProQuest Research Library. CC Advisor. doi: 10.5260/cca.199462
4. Gene Editing – Digital Media Kit. (2019, October 23). Retrieved from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/gene-editing-digital-press-kit.
5. Stein, R. (2019, June 4). House Committee Votes To Continue Ban On Genetically Modified Babies. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/04/729606539/house-committee-votes-to-continue-research-ban-on-genetically-modified-babies.
6. What is gene therapy? - Genetics Home Reference - NIH. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/therapy/genetherapy.
7. Pharmacogenomics – NIH (n.d.). retrieved from www.nigms.nih.gov/education/Documents/pharmacogenomics1.pdf.
8. Blood group antigens - Genetics Home Reference - NIH. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genefamily/bloodgroupantigens.