Introductory Paragraph PART B

Since the dawn of time, people have wanted to be healthy. Unfortunately, there have always been unfavorable weather conditions, germs, poor living conditions, and faulty genes that thwart them in their ever-present quest. Of the above mentioned causes of disease, humans have generally learned how to provide themselves with shelter, kill bacteria with antibiotics, and stay clean and well-nourished, but genetic disease remained a profound mystery, but until the discovery of genetics and DNA. Currently, there are some treatments for these diseases, but not cures. Those who inherited type A diabetes from their parents, for example, can supplement their body with insulin injections. But there are many of these diseases that have no really treatments whatsoever like Huntington's disease. However, there is a new kind of technology that aims to cure these diseases entirely by altering the human genetic code. Gene therapy, as this science is called, uses genetically-altered viruses to insert re-engineered DNA into affected human cells. Though this science is still rather young and controversial, gene therapy should be more extensively researched, tested, and eventually commercialized.

P. S. I would never really start my paper with "since the dawn of time..." I just thought I'd get the temptation to do that out of my system before I actually wrote my paper :)

Introductory Paragraph PART A

You start to sniffle, cough, and get a sore throat. You know that you’re about to endure a few weeks of the common cold. While this may be an annoying inconvenience, you know that it will eventually go away and you will return to health. Now, imagine being born with an illness that you will have your entire life—but it is much worse than the common cold. What would it be like to have to go through your entire life afflicted with an illness like Huntington’s disease, hemophilia, severe combined immune deficiency (SCID), or cystic fibrosis? Not only do these diseases severely impair the health of an individual, they and many others like them are incurable. A doctor cannot prescribe an antibiotic to treat these diseases, because they are caused by a defective genetic code, not a pathogen. It has only been within the last hundred years that scientists have discovered the cause of genetic diseases which were a profound medical mystery up until the discovery of genes and DNA as the genetic blueprint. Modern science has made certain therapies available for some of these diseases so that individuals with Type I diabetes, for example, can receive insulin injections, and hemophilia patients can receive supplements of the clotting factor that their body does not produce. However, many of these genetic diseases, such as SCID, have no treatment to supplement the deficiencies of a faulty genetic code. Children born with SCID are confined to a germ-free “bubble” their entire lives unless they are lucky enough to get a bone marrow transplant that their body does not reject. Being diagnosed with a genetic disease is extremely sad because there is usually little to no hope for a cure or even a treatment.

However, within the last couple decades researchers have discovered a new way to treat genetic diseases. Instead of just providing supplements and making up for what the body doesn’t produce, why not alter the human genome and “fix” the genes? Gene therapy, as this new treatment is called, is much more complicated than most people, and even most scientists, comprehend, but it is with reach. In 1998, for example, ten SCID patients were treated using gene therapy and all but one were able to live normal lives thanks to this new alternative treatment. However, anytime a scientist wants to mess with the human genome, there is ethical controversy. Though gene therapy research generally does not involve the use of embryonic stem cells, bioethicists are concerned that gene therapy will lead to the standardization of eugenic practices, especially as regards fetal gene therapy. Also, many of the clinical trials associated with gene therapy have failed. Mistakes in gene therapy research protocol have resulted in tight restrictions on the progress of research by the federal government. With more research and safer clinical trials, gene therapy could eventually become an important treatment for genetic diseases. Currently, researchers are also using gene therapy to treat certain types of cancer and preliminary research is now underway to test gene therapy as a treatment for AIDS. Through controversy surrounds the study of gene therapy, this life-saving science could be more extensively researched, funded, and eventually commercialized so that people born with serious genetic diseases can have hope for a healthy, productive life.

The Three Levels of Coolness in Gene Therapy Articles

My topic for the Issues Paper is gene therapy. Gene therapy is the science of using altered gene sequences in viral vectors and oncolytic (cancer-killing) viruses to alter human DNA in specific tissues to kill cancer cells and prevent or cure severe genetic disorders. The most famous feat of gene therapy thus far has been Alain Fischer's gene therapy for severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) patients. He was able to successfully use viral vectors to cure 9 of 10 SCID patients... only one died of complications related to the therapy. This is actually really incredible, because normally all of these children would have died within their first few years of life.

But on to my sources... the most credible of my three sources was an article entitled, "Viral Therapy for Glioblastoma," from the May/June 2003 issue of The Cancer Journal, a highly reputable source for current cancer research. The only thing about this source that might that make it a bit less desirable than others is that it is five years old. Especially when you're talking about science, this could be very outdated information. However, from the background research that I've done concerning this topic, the science of gene therapy is not progressing very fast due to general tentativeness and government restrictions because there have been a few patient deaths associated with clinical gene therapy trials. This article, however, was full to the brim of techincal terms, intutive scientific perspectives, and current research (or at least as of 2003). Every author listed has an MD and a PhD.

My article of 'medium' credibility, "The Glimmering Promise of Gene Therapy," was from a more popular science magazine, Technology Review, not a scholarly journal. However, this article provided an interesting and (as far as I can tell) accurate overview of the the history of gene therapy research. The author does not have an advanced degree, but is quite prolific and has authored many well-respected science books and written lots of articles on various scientific topics. Also, a healthy portion of the article was derived from personal interviews that the author had with prominent gene therapy scientists such an Alain Fischer. While this article can't boast the hardcore scholarly credibility of the one from The Cancer Journal, I believe that it is still a good source for background research and an "interview perspective."

Finally, my least credible source was the "Gene Therapy" article from Wikipedia. While there was some important basic information in this article and it might be an okay resource for someone who had a primitive curiosity in gene therapy, there were a lot of holes in the information presented and the facts were basic and conceptual with little scientific backing. It was evident that many different people had edited the article... some of whom didn't even finish what they started. Like I said, it might be a good overview for some random person who just wanted to know was gene therapy was, but for my Issues paper, I will definitely be looking for more scholarly, indepth, scientifically-based sources than Wikipedia.