Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well. I've been meaning to make this thread for a little while, and even wrote it out last week but then my computer crashed haha so as you read this, know that the forces of will may have not wanted me to create this thread.
I started working in a microbiology lab a few months back. In this lab, we engineer bacteria (E. coli) and yeast to intake DNA that we design and replicate in vitro, to express certain qualities or proteins that are desirable for various reasons. Ever since beginning this work, I have had very slight reservations in the back of my mind about the ethics of it all. I mostly subscribe to the ideology that intent is the most important aspect of any work that someone does, but I also go back and forth because of the way we treat these (albeit micro) organisms, as just a means to an end, and then we wash em down the drain (I do usually thank them after I am done, do not believe anyone else here does though). It's not like they suffer, and it is all limited to the micro scale, no work on plants or animals of any sort.
Do you believe the principle of DNA design and modification is "bad"? Inside and outside of the context of GMO foods?
I tend to stay away from GMO foods because many are designed to be sweeter or more pest resistant which I do not really align with.
Thoughts?
I hope you are all doing well. I've been meaning to make this thread for a little while, and even wrote it out last week but then my computer crashed haha so as you read this, know that the forces of will may have not wanted me to create this thread.
I started working in a microbiology lab a few months back. In this lab, we engineer bacteria (E. coli) and yeast to intake DNA that we design and replicate in vitro, to express certain qualities or proteins that are desirable for various reasons. Ever since beginning this work, I have had very slight reservations in the back of my mind about the ethics of it all. I mostly subscribe to the ideology that intent is the most important aspect of any work that someone does, but I also go back and forth because of the way we treat these (albeit micro) organisms, as just a means to an end, and then we wash em down the drain (I do usually thank them after I am done, do not believe anyone else here does though). It's not like they suffer, and it is all limited to the micro scale, no work on plants or animals of any sort.
Do you believe the principle of DNA design and modification is "bad"? Inside and outside of the context of GMO foods?
I tend to stay away from GMO foods because many are designed to be sweeter or more pest resistant which I do not really align with.
Thoughts?