Controlling Genetics?

Question

Is it possible to control genetics?

My uncle and I are fighting over it.

I think you can, because--

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15101676

opinions?

Answer 1

I'm going to have disagree with Dub, RNAi is very much present in humans and micro-RNA's are right now one of the hottest areas of cancer research.  A lot of different forms of mir's are over or under-expressed in different cancers.   The field of RNAi moved out of C.elegans about 10 years ago.    Now, what I think you are talking about is that shRNA's are still not in therapeutic use but mostly because we can not figure out how to safely put them in and how to target them to the right issue.  Other than that, we have no problem knocking-down gene expression (which is different than "knocking-out" a gene).  

So, in a sense, there are multiple ways to control genetics, either with histone methylation which effectively silences a gene so it is not transcribed, or with micro RNA's which target mRNA of genes and thus, even though the gene is active, the protein never gets made.  

Oh, and for a kicker, it turns out that your "experiences" can lead to histone methylation thus your environment can modify your genetics.  Crazy, huh?

Answer 2

If there is a way to alter genetic make-up certainly modern medicine and science will find it. An example of this is stem cell research. If altering genetics can cure or stop disease from occuring, I'm all for it. Unfortunately, like anything else it can be misused, and that's the thing that concerns me.

Answer 3

Well, no its not possible. This RNAi (topic from the article that Fire & Mello discovered) isn't being used in humans, and when it is being used, most commonly with C. elegans its effects have to be administered to an early embryo. This area of knowledge has high possibility of being used for major therapies in the future, but as of now, nothing like that exists.

It also depends what you mean by controlling genetics, there are drugs out there that regulate hormones. Changing these hormones will turn on/off different genes, but it is indirect and most would not call this "controlling genetics"