-line therapy is not so new to animals as it is people. In the 1980's Leroy hood, a scientist at the University of Washington, added new genes to mice embryos who had a deadly hereditary nervous system disorder. This gene treatment cured the nervous system disorder in the mice, along with their offspring from there on after (Svitil 1998). There is much controversy about this type of gene altering.These same researchers are developing new genetic technologies for use in humans as well. Several researchers have announced the creation of artificial chromosomes which are structures that contain no genetic material but have places where genes can be added. Artificial chromosomes could be added into cells where, like normal chromosomes, would replicate and pass their attached genetic messages from the parent cell to the daughter cell (Campbell 1999).Campbell plans to use artificial chromosomes for protection against diseases like AIDS or specific forms of cancer. For instance, Campbell outlined a plan by which prostate cancer could be targeted using special 'cassettes' of genes that instruct the body to produce a toxin that attacks the cells in the prostate. Other genes would be placed on artificial chromosomes and inserted into early embryonic cells. If a man were later diagnosed with prostate cancer, he could be given a shot of ecdysone, triggering the toxin. The body would then kill off the prostate cells, and the cancer along with them. Other artificial chromosomes could be produced to deal with different health threats, or even to make desirable, but nonessential, genetic changes (Svitil 1998).Whether or not this would really work is a big question the scientists have thought of. Geneticist Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah said, "germ-line therapy is actually much simpler than somatic therapy." Somatic gene therapy was first tested on humans back in 1990, when W. French Anderson of the University of Southern California...
