Objective Summary #2

In chapters 4 through 6 of "Gene Therapy" by Joseph Panno, Panno recounts the story of Jesse Gelsinger and how his death struck a blow to gene therapy as a whole. He goes on to explain how gene therapy can be improved and how it may be used in the future. The Jesse Gelsinger trial brought to light some of the mistakes that can be made during gene therapy trials and made sure that such mistakes would never happen again in future trials. Panno continues by predicting how gene therapy can be used to change our cosmetic appearance as well as our own physiology. We are also warned that the widespread use of such a treatment could possibly interfere with the future of human evolution. He concludes the chapter by questioning the morals of such a therapy and how it could potentially damage the germ line (genes passed on over generations) of any who accept gene therapy.

By inserting Hemocyanin genes into our red blood cells,
Humans would be able to survive in low-oxygen environments
that our current hemoglobin would not.

Essential Question: Genetic Engineering

Question: Should genetic testing on consenting humans be opened to medicine?

Claim: Yes, because genetic testing on humans will further our understanding of genetics.

Reasons: With the help of gene therapy, we will be able to cure previously incurable genetic diseases. Through the alteration of certain retroviruses, we can insert desirable genes into affected organs which will replace defective genes, thus treating the condition. Genetic testing on humans will allow us to go a step beyond conventional treatment and actually start curing these debilitating diseases.

Objective Summary: Gene Therapy

       In the first chapters of "Gene Therapy" by Joseph Panno, Panno explains what genetic diseases are and how they work, he goes on to inform audiences of how drugs go through clinical trials and how it's similar to gene therapy clinical trials. Genetic diseases are generally very debilitating and often incurable with conventional treatments. Gene therapy is the supposed answer to these incurable, debilitating diseases. The author goes into extensive detail on how the human immune system interacts with viruses and how they can exploited to insert favorable genes into patients (learn more here). Panno goes on to explain how most drugs go through 3-4 clinical trials before they are released to the public and how those trials were similar to the clinical trials that the first therapeutic genes went through. He concludes by recounting the details of the first gene therapy trial and how it was a major success.

Survey responses

From what we have observed, people are not very educated on GMOs. %50 percent of the students who took the survey believe that GMOs are harmful for you and 33.3% didn't know. Also, 67% of people did not know of any GMOs. we realized as a group, that we have to educate or fellow students.

Surveymonkey Genetic Engineering

www.surveymonkey.com/s/BBG28RC

Brave New World blog post discussion #3

Critique the methods of control that are used in the novel Brave New World.

       The methods of control used in Brave New World are exceptionally well designed for this utopian society. In the society, everyone is given a daily ration of soma, a muscle relaxer that serves as a depressant for anyone with stress. Everyone is encouraged to take soma on a regular basis, as to do so would keep everyone calm at all times. From decanting, children are made to listen to hypnoædic verses that indoctrinate them into believing in what the hatchery wants them to believe. During the occasional riot, some certain hypnopædic verses are played out of music boxes strewn throughout the city that are used to calm the masses. The riot police are known to have used soma in vapor form to calm riots as well as water guns filled with a powerful anesthetic. During a riot caused by John; " Three men with spraying machines buckled to their shoulders pumped thick clouds of soma vapour into the air. Two more were busy round the portable Synthetic Music Box. Carrying water pistols charged with a powerful anæsthetic..." Contrary to what one may think a water pistol is, this is more what the author probably had in mind. The controllers in the new world dispatch non-lethal methods of crowd control, as using lethal methods might anger the general public. Keeping everyone at a generally calm and euphoric mood has served the world controllers well, as there is rarely ever an uprising or rebellion of sorts. Their nonviolent methods are exceptionally effective as it keeps the world productive, peaceful and under control.

Brave New World Discussion Blog Post #2

Explain why John and Bernard Marx are similar and why they are different.

       Bernard and John are similar in the book mainly because their childhoods were very much alike, and their disposition towards the utopian society is pretty much on the same level. However they are different in the sense that John was looked down upon by his people because he knew how to read and function in a society, while Bernard was looked down upon because of his abnormally small height. John was the child of Linda, a Beta from the utopian society who got stuck in the Santa Fe Savage Reservation. As a child, his mother taught him to read english when she wasn't drunk on Mezcal that Popé always brought. He grew up essentially without a mother, which is a very similar circumstance to that of everyone in the utopian society. Bernard received his education normally, and lived without a biological parent. But where John grew up as a superior (that is, smarter) minority, Bernard Marx grew up appearing to be part of an inferior (shorter, and Gamma-like) majority. They both have a shared hatred/dislike of the utopian society, one point that they most definitely agree on is the excessive use of soma, John does something about it: "'I'll teach you; I'll make you be free whether you want to or not.' And pushing open a window that looked on into the inner court of the Hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the sea." (213). Both of these individuals don't agree with the morals of the society in Brave New World, oftentimes Bernard will deal with his problems rather than ignore them with soma like the rest of his people. John's actions reflect a similar disposition towards the drug. While both Bernard and John are similar people, they are similar because of different reasons. John is against the society in London because he grew up in the more organic, primal area of The Reservation, while Bernard is a member of this utopian society but is less than fond of they way they go about things. The takeaway message here is that it doesn't matter where you come from, if you have similar interests, then you can find a friend in anyone.

Smore Flyer Brave New World

Discussion Question Analytical Paragraph #1

Compare/contrast the morals of Bernard Marx to those of the D.H.C.

       Bernard's morals are considerably more conservative when compared to the morals of the D.H.C. While the rest of the hatchery, and the rest of society for that matter, promote an infantile, promiscuous lifestyle, full of drugs and casual intercourse, Bernard acts a bit more conservatively. For the most part, Bernard does not consume soma, nor does he take part in casual intercourse, instead he takes more of a monogamistic approach, and builds a romantic relationship with a Beta, Lenina Crowne. Bernard never fit in among his Alpha-plus peers, mainly because he was shorter than his peers. In a world where people are altered from birth to become whatever the hatchery wants them to become, individuals who differ from the norm of their caste are ridiculed for having characteristics of lower castes. Bernard's height defect set him apart from the crowd, which caused him to become an outcast, and think in an opposing manner to those around him. The rest of the people in the hatchery follow the rules of the director, and engage in casual intercourse, and consume soma on a regular basis. As Bernard confronts The Director of the D.H.C. to attain a permit to visit Mexico with Lenina, The Director says: "My workers must be above suspicion, particularly those of the highest castes... If I ever hear again from any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum, I shall ask for your transference... to Iceland" (98). The D.H.C likes to have control over all facets of daily life, so naturally, having someone who deviates from the desired behavior is an issue to a world leader. Marx behaves very differently in comparison to his peers, despite the fact that his behavior is not necessarily a bad thing, especially in today's society, he actually received a warning from one of the world's leaders that his behavior is unacceptable. And that is a shining example of his deviation, and why he's different from his people. 

Genetic Engineering, an ad by our group

Genetic Engineering Ad

Malcolm Gladwell Tuesday Write

       Malcolm Gladwell's research gives us insight to some of the things that we don't often think twice about. While he himself is not making these discoveries (chunky tomato sauce, Norden Bomb Sight, and Goliath's pituitary tumor, etc.) he goes further and analyzes how these discoveries affect us. We never knew that we enjoyed chunky tomato sauce until we were actually introduced to it. Before chunky tomato sauce was a thing, everyone either liked watery sauce or didn't like sauce on their pasta. When Howard Moskowitz  ran a sampling test to see which tomato sauce everyone liked, he saw that everyone liked 1 of 3 sauces, plain, spicy and chunky. That means that about 1/3 of the american population did not know that they actually liked chunky tomato sauce. For the video on Gladwell's tomato sauce research, click here. What can be taken away from Gladwell's talks is to go into deeper detail about things that we often take as normal or don't think that much about. Why is it that people have an automatic bias towards a certain people? Why is it that some people are considerably more successful than others?

Malcolm Gladwell Speaks at Penn State University about the effects of football on the brain.

      An interesting phenomenon that I often see is when one spends a lot of time with another person or group of similar people, that person will begin to pick up the mannerisms of those around him/her. For example, if you spend a lot of time with someone who has a nervous twitch of playing with their hair, over time, when you get nervous you may begin playing with your hair, or making contact with your hair when normally you wouldn't. It interests me because it's one of the social interaction phenomena that i never really understood. My theory is that this kind of interaction dates back to the age of clans and small villages. Back then, you had to be in a clan or a group of people in order to survive, because it was often very difficult to sustain yourself when you had to worry about shelter and clean food and water. Being in a group of people granted a certain level of safety, a fair amount of food, water and shelter. Often to get into a clan, one would have to behave in a similar way to that group in order to be accepted. This would tell the others in the group that the person isn't foreign and therefore not dangerous. This kind of behavior could have been ingrained into our minds over generation upon generation, and even today, it becomes apparent as social interaction occurs over time.

Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book: Outliers