Focus on DNA

The Human Genome Project is well underway with many public and private races to its completion. Already, there are more unknown aspects of the genes that have been mapped than there are those whose functions are fully known, but each bit discovered and described adds to the large body of knowledge surrounding DNA, arguably the single most important molecule to life.



Controversy

Nearly all investigations centered around DNA are controversial to some extent. Recombinant DNA research raises issues of ethics, but few critics discuss the benefits of the narrowly targeted drugs made possible through recombinant procedures. Genetic engineering also causes ethics questions, yet none disagree that many of the results of that engineering is inherently evil. Altering bacteria to be able to metabolize and eliminate oil spills obviously has great benefit, as is the existence of genetically engineered plants able to take up heavy metal contaminants from the soil, thereby re...