What is the Genetic Frontier?
Genetics is the study of the mechanisms that govern the heredity of traits in an organism. The genetic frontier has been a recently developed field of biotechnology that ties in with genetics. Some other advances that are incorporated into the genetic frontier include: • cloning • genetically altered crops • gene splicing • gene therapy It is believed that the result of the study of the gene will lead us into the future. The Human Genome is on the apex of the genetic frontier. It will allow us to decode the human genetic make-up, which will one day enable us to eliminate genetic diseases. However, the Human Genome raises a vast amount of ethical issues such as the predetermining of child traits, whether or not humans should tamper with the genetic code, and the abuse of genetic knowledge.
