Jean-etics and the Lavv (Genetics and the Law)

In recent years, due to a dramatic advances in genetics research, many legal and bioethical issues have arisen about how gene research can and cannot be used. Although many of these issues have arisen, I am going to turn my microscope on to the 40x lens and focus in on legislation related to stem cell research and legislation related to discrimination based upon genetic make up, just two bioethical issues on the slide of genetics and the law. First I will delve in to the mysterious concept of discrimination based upon the genes that one is born with.

This concept, as implausible as it may seem, is actually fairly possible. This is well illustrated in a movie called GATTACA (For some unknown reason when you turn on captions that transcribe the audio the name changes to CUAAUGU), where job interviews consist of having one’s DNA read. Legislation been around this has been discussed for around 15 years, but a bill was only recently passed by former President George W. Bush in 2008. Legislation regarding this scenario is pretty straightforward; discrimination against any person because of their genetic makeup is not permitted in the United States. This pertains particularly to hiring companies and insurance companies. Companies are forbidden from using genetic tendencies towards disease as factors when hiring or promoting. Also, insurance companies cannot mandate genetic tests or use similar data in deciding whether to insure a certain person This is instrumental because many people refused to get genetically tested even when it opens up many treatment options due to fear of unemployment or lack of insurance. It seems like a stretched comparison, but if discrimination was allowed to reach the point of genetics, it would share qualities with racial discrimination of the 1960s. In the 1960s, black people did not register to vote for fear of the registrar contacting the attempted registrants employer and having the attempted registrant fired. In that scenario, the discriminated had to abstain from voting and if a situation analogous to life in GATTACA arose, people would steer clear of getting genetically tested. Refusing to get genetically tested could lead to people not learning about hereditary or other diseases as early as they should, which in turn severely limits treatment options. This so called Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is instrumental in preventing our world from becoming a utopian world full of unfairness such as the worlds in sci-fi movies like GATTACA and Minority Report.

 Here is a sketchfu I put together that would be very useful for a PSA if this bill hadn't already been passed or it could be useful if our world goes all GATTACA on us.

Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!

Now let’s have a rhetorical discussion (you can comment if you must) about stem cell research and legislation related to it, particularly Executive Order 13505 that was issued by President Barack Obama in March of 2009. Stem cell research, ever since its discovery, has led to many advances in science. If you would like to learn more about stem cells as a whole, you can check out my fellow classmates blog post about it here: http://sarasbioblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/stem-cell-research.html. Essentially, this order allows stem cell research, as long as it is carried out responsibly and used only for advances in medical research that are legal. This order also provides guidelines and budget for the NIH to research stem cells. In addition, this order revokes a previous presidential order that put restrictions on stem cell research. This EO was issued because stem cell research is quickly advancing and has the potential to help many medical treatment processes and open many doors.

Sources: 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/21/us-genetics-bush-idUSN2143439320080521

http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2009guidelines.htm

 I DARE YOU CLICK THIS AND THIS

Laron Syndrome - emordnyS noraL - Reflection - noitcelfeR

The article about the Ecuadorians who have have Laron syndrome is extremely interesting. What is particularly intriguing is the potential that this knowledge has to extend life and put off cancer and diabetes. Studies done in these people with Laron syndrome revealed that they have low levels of IGF1 and experiments done on worms and mice showed that the low levels of this growth factor inhibit cancer and diabetes. This notion is very interesting. If scientists learned how to manipulate this gene in a certain way, they theoretically might be able to make it less abundant in people with high cancer risks and prevent cancer. However, if manipulation of IGF1 was doable, some people could choose to use it to gain increased growth by increasing the levels. However, using the manipulation of IGF1 as an artificial growth hormone would be very risky, similar to how HGH and steroids are dangerous to the body in some ways. People who have an over abundance of IGF1 have been shown to be very tall, they also are at a high risk for diseases such as cancer. According to http://www.buzzle.com/articles/human-growth-hormone-hgh-side-effects.html, a side effect of HGH is acromegaly, the converse of Ladron syndorme which was talked about in the original article. This study could also further prove the dangers of steroids. Also, it will be interesting to see if it can be found out if it would be beneficial if IGF1 was reduced in all humans. IT obviously stunts growth, but would it be worth it if it lowers cancer risk significantly. Also, I wonder what a decrease in IGF1 would do to a person who is already finished growing. For somebody like this, would it be win/win situation? All in all, this find is really interesting and could lead to breakthrough discoveries in the science of cancer.

Sally: Grandma's Hairless Cat

You may or may not have a cat as a pet, but you have most likely seen one. While you were at your grandma's house observing her hairless cat, did you take the time to look at the magic of how he or she drinks? A recent paper has gone into detail of the wonderful complexity of just exactly how cats go about drinking. After reading those first sentences, you may be wondering what I could possibly be talking about. In your mind, you've most likely thought that cats drink in a simple manner. They form a ladle with their tongue and scoop the liquid into their mouth. Wrong. The method I just described is used by dogs, but cats employ a completely different method. Cats, being the intelligent creatures they are, take advantage of the liquid's inertia. Inertia is the laziness of an object, in simple terms. Inertia is the unwillingness of an object to change unless it is manipulated by another force. In this case, we will make the liquid milk and the manipulator gravity. As your grandma's hairless cat stealthily approaches the milk filled bowl (while wearing kitten mittens), he prepares to take full advantage of the inertia of the milk. Your grandma's cat, henceforth known as Sally, dips her tongue, which is the same color as her fur (or lack thereof), into the milk. Almost as quickly as the tongue enters the milk, she pulls it, yanking the milk up into the air. For a split second, the inertia of the milk suspends it in the air, and in this moment, Sally surrounds the milk with her mouth and swallows it. After that split second of suspension, gravity, the manipulator, kicks in, snapping the milk back down into the bowl. Still thirsty, Sally repeats the complex and intricate process again until her thirst is quenched.

The intricacy of this seemingly simple process was discovered by a team of scientists led by Pedro Reis. The team went about observing this by using high speed cameras, as cats dip their tongues down into the liquid an astounding three and a half times per second. Even more astoundingly, when the tongue shoots back into the mouth, it moves at a speed of seventy-eight centimeters per second. When Reis first began the experiment, he and his team figured that the roughness of the cat's tongue would play a role; a prediction that was drastically wrong. In actuality, the tip of the tongue that penetrates the surface of the liquid is smooth, and the smoothness is actually very good for lapping up the milk or water. Throughout the research, Reis and his team found that the viscosity of the liquid, and least between the bounds of what a cat would logically drink, did not affect the process. Rather, the determining factors were the inertia and gravitational pull. One may think that this is an odd thing to research or that somebody must have done it before, but as Rebecca Z. German of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine says, "What we know about mammalian feeding is woefully incomplete."

Here are some videos, one of a cat lapping up milk in slo-mo, and the other of a simulator demonstrating the inertia of water.


FAST LAPS from Science News on Vimeo.


TONGUE SUBSTITUTE from Science News on Vimeo.


So now you know, and next time you see your grandma's hairless feline lapping up some milk, you can explain to all your friends what Sally is really doing.

Source:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65379/title/Cats_drink_using_lap-and-gulp_trick
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481062/Puss-Hood-Hairless-Sphynx-cat-keeps-warm.html