Gene doping and bioethics: legal regulation. Prospects, forecasts, obstacles

The article analyzes the correlation between the development of genetic science and bioethics issues. In the context of the rapid and steady development of genetic engineering and biomedicine, there is a lag in legal research in this area. Determining the vector of development of legal regulation of gene therapy and gene doping is currently one of the most important issues of modern science, which needs to be resolved from a legal and ethical point of view. In regulatory legal acts in the field of international sports and at the national level, a ban on the use of gene doping has been established, as well as responsibility for its use is provided. However, the measures taken are not enough.The article considers some existing problematic aspects of the correlation between the development of genetic science and bioethics and suggests ways to solve them. Thus, it is proposed to build a system of principles for preventing and countering the use of the gene doping method and to differentiate the concepts of gene therapy and gene doping in order to comply with the principles of Olympism and preserve the health of future generations.

The Basic Framework

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical framework for the book: a 2 × 2 typology that can help us understand the controversies surrounding genomics. The vertical dimension ranges from a perception that genetic inheritance strongly affects important human phenotypes to a perception that important human phenotypes are affected not by genetic inheritance but rather by environmental context, family and background, free choice, a deity’s will, or luck. The horizontal dimension ranges from technology optimism—a view that the gains from innovation can outweigh its harms—to the opposite, technology pessimism. The two dimensions jointly create four cells: “Enthusiasm,” focusing on the benefits of using the science of genetic influence, “Skepticism,” focusing on the risks of using the science of genetic influence, “Hope,” focusing on developing social improvements through means other than genetic influence, and “Rejection,” which highlights the hubris of both genetic science and social programming.

Hope and Rejection

Chapter 5 examines the remaining two cells in the basic framework: “Hope,” about developing social programs separate from genetic influence, and “Rejection,” emphasizing the hubris of both genetic science and social programming. For each viewpoint, this chapter explores arenas within medical and scientific research (including environmental causes of and cures for disease, and personal choice), criminal justice (including predictive models, epigenetics, and environmental or personal causes), and biogeographical DNA testing (largely rejected except through traditional genealogy in both cells). Chapter 5 provides evidence to support both hope about understanding causes of individual or societal problems and policy interventions to solve them, and the conviction that policy interventions will be a waste of time or actually harmful.

Life Writing in the Era of Genetics: Contemporary Genetic Risk Narratives in Great Britain and America

The development of genetic science brings forth a third group besides the healthy and the ill: the high-risk group who carries certain disease-related genes. In the era of genetics, people try to assess risks with statistical numbers and eliminate risks by Western medical measures. In this context, personal genetic risk narratives (usually in the form of memoirs) emerged in Great Britain and America in the 1990s. The thesis has a close reading of three British and American genetic risk memoirs and wants to find the characteristics and values of the new genre. The memoirs are featured by their vivid description of the narrator’s difficult and complex situation in face of genetic risks. In an era when the body is dominated by statistical numbers, these narratives make personal meaning of impersonal statistics. Genetic risk narratives express a strong belief in genetic technology and Western medical myth. However, the narrative divergence and self-contradiction in the memoirs exposes the limitation of genetic determinism and thus deconstructs the Western medical myth.

Genetic Science is Brilliant – Can We Afford it?

The prospects for the application of pharmacogenomic science for improving health care appear to be exciting, and it should be recognized rightly for its clinical applicability. Notwithstanding, the use of these techniques needs to be viewed in context. When people can reliably access safe and effective medicines at an affordable cost and with consistent support from pharmacists to ensure the outcomes are optimized and the prospect of iatrogenic disease is minimized, then there is no doubt that the wider adoption of these techniques needs to be embraced with enthusiasm.

GENETIC TECHNOLOGIES IN THE MODERN WORLD: ESCALATION OF OPPORTUNITIES AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

The article examines the development of genetic science from the moment of its inception to the present state, shows the transformation of ideas about genetics and attitudes towards it during the evolution of public consciousness (from utopia nism to alarmism). The modern possibilities of genetic technologies, the prospects of their influence on social structures and on the nature of the person himself are analyzed, the risks and social consequences associated with this process are explicated. The potential of genetic engineering, technologies of "human improvement", genetic testing is considered, its ability to influence the fundamental foundations of human existence, the ability to transform the boundaries between biological and social, nature and culture, is demonstrated. The authors also touch upon the problem of transhumanism, within the framework of which the contradiction between the position of the supporters of the emergence of mankind on a new round of evolution and modern ideas about the natural equality of all people is indicated, the overcoming of which carries ethical, legal and political consequences that are difficult to predict.

A Review Article: Categorization, Advancement and Obstacles of Genetic factors and types of Spinal Muscular Degeneration

SMA (Spinal muscular atrophies) are category of hereditary inflammation in the funiculars and lower brain stem, tissue fatigue, and degeneration characterized by motor neuron failure. The analytic and genetic phenotypes incorporate a diverse continuum distinguished depending on age of onset, tissue participation arrangement, and inheritance arrangement. Rapid advancements in genetic science have expedite the discovery of causative genes over the past few years, and provide significant access in awareness the biochemical and neurological basis of Spinal muscular atrophies and insights into the motor neurons' selective deficiency. Popular path physiological topics include Ribonucleic Acid metabolism and splicing abnormalities, axonal transmission, and motor neurons' advancement and communication. These also collectively revealed possible innovative prevention methods and comprehensive attempts are what benefits does the company offer? Although a range of promising therapeutic therapies for Spinal muscular atrophies is emerging, it is essential to identify therapeutic windows and establish responsive and appropriate biomarkers to promote future analytic trial success. This research offers a description of Spinal muscular atrophies' logical manifestations and genetics. It discusses recent advancements in learning—mechanisms for the pathogenesis of inflammation and new treatment methods.

New poetics of postcolonial relations: global genetic kinship in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome

Conceptions of genetic kinship have recently emerged as a powerful new discourse through which to trace and imagine connections between individuals and communities around the globe. This article argues that, as a new way to think and represent such connections, genetic discourses of relatedness constitute a new poetics of kinship. Discussing two exemplary contemporary novels, Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000), this article argues further that literary fiction, and postcolonial literary fiction in particular, is uniquely positioned to critically engage this new biomedical discourse of global and interpersonal relations. Ghosh’s and Smith’s novels illuminate and amplify the concept of a cultural poetics of genetic kinship by aesthetically transcending the limits of genetic science to construct additional genetic connections between the West and the Global South on the level of metaphor and analogy. As both novels oscillate spatially between the West and a postcolonial Indian subcontinent, the texts’ representations of literal and figurative genetic relations become a vehicle through which the novels test and reconfigure postcolonial and diasporic identities, as well as confront Western genetic science with alternative forms of knowledge. The emerging genetic imaginary highlights—evoking recent sociological and anthropological work—that meaningful kinship relations rely on biological as much as on cultural discourses and interpretations, especially in postcolonial and migrant contexts where genetic markers become charged with conflicting notions of connection and otherness.

Building Argumentation Skills in the Biology Classroom

Arguing from evidence is one of eight key science practices in which students should engage. It is an essential component of science, yet students have difficulties with this practice. We describe a scaffolded claims-evidence-reasoning (CER) argumentation framework that is embedded within a new eight-week, freely available curriculum unit developed by the Genetic Science Learning Center – Evolution: DNA and the Unity of Life. The scaffold provides high school students with practice in both developing and evaluating written arguments. It is designed to incrementally build student skill week-by-week, starting with an introduction to the CER components of an argument, and ending with students evaluating data and constructing a supported written argument. We also present evaluation findings from field testing the argumentation scaffold in the context of the complete Evolution unit in dozens of classrooms. And we discuss how this integrated, scaffolded approach to argumentation influenced both student and teacher learning.

CRISPR/Cas9-based genome engineering in HIV gene therapy

In recent years, the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated nuclease (Cas) technology has become the most heated genome editing technique. Comparing to earlier genetic engineering methods, the CRISPR/Cas system is more advantageous due to its simple convenient design, high efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to perform multi-sites editing simultaneously. As the most effective gene editing tool, it utilizes a simple short RNA-guided mechanism to direct Cas-mediated DNA cleavage at the target genome locus and exploits the endogenous DNA repair pathways to achieve site-specific gene modifications. Initially discovered as a part of the bacterial adaptive immune system, the CRISPR/Cas system has now been widely used to study a broad range of biological genomes. Besides its contribution to our understanding of the basic genetic science, the application of the CRISPR/Cas system also expands rapidly into the medical fields, showing great potentials in the research of genetic diseases, viral infectious diseases, and cancers. In this review, the latest research progress of CRISPR/Cas technology is summarized based on its development, mechanism, and application in HIV/AIDS intervention. This review also examines the existing weaknesses and the future prospects of this promising technology.