modern surgery, while the production of antibiotics in the 1920s minimized the threat from diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera. The creation of serums which build up the bodies immune system to specific infections, before being laid low with them, has also enhanced modern medicine greatly (Stableford 59). All of these discoveries will fall under the broad shadow of genetic engineering when it reaches its apex in the medical community.Many people suffer from genetic diseases ranging from thousands of types of cancers, to blood, liver, and lung disorders. Amazingly, all of these will be able to be treated by genetic engineering, specifically, gene therapy. The basis of gene therapy is to supply a functional gene to cells lacking that particular function, thus correcting the genetic disorder or disease. There are two main categories of gene therapy: germ line therapy, or altering of sperm and egg cells, and somatic cell therapy, which is much like an organ transplant. Germ line therapy results in a permanent change for the entire organism, and its future offspring. Unfortunately, germ line therapy is not readily in use on humans for ethical reasons. However, this genetic method could, in the future, solve many genetic birth defects such as downs syndrome. Somatic cell therapy deals with the direct treatment of living tissues. Scientists, in a lab, inject the tissues with the correct, functioning gene and then re-administer them to the patient, correcting the problem (Clarke 1). Along with altering the cells of living tissues, genetic engineering has also proven extremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. "Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms" (Stableford 34). Two reasons are evident for this ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions easily in bacteria, and the transformed bacteria cells can be easily selected out from the untransformed ones. ...
