Biology 3594A Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Mitochondrial Disease, Gender Identity, Zygote
13 May 2018
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What do we have to do to go to clinical trials?
Required Reading 1
How can you get consent from a zygote? Is consent meaningful?
PGD: prenatal genetic diagnosis
If we think of embryos as having personhood, moral status
Proxies being meaningful
At the centre: is all of this safe?
One of the major barriers is error rate, fear of unpredictable results
3 parent offspring UK
Maternal DNA, Paternal DNA, mitochondrial DNA –3 diff parents
Remove nucleus from egg (ethical debate) –individual doesn’t have mitochondrial disease –edit the genome
Mitochondrial DNA of a donor third parent
Maintaining truthfulness, transparency
People would be aware and have informed consent
Evaluate therapeutic benefit
Humans vs Animals –our rationality set us apart
Last 20-30 years –integrated emotions and other dimensions of our nature into our definition of identity
Modernity: human that is continuous, rational, universal rights
Last 50 years: this identity dissolving into different strands
Gender identity, race, sexual identities and preferences, try to foster that type of diversity and make it coalesce with this general idea of a human being
Main diff between modern and post modern
Modern: after WW2 tried to come up with something we all share
Post Modern: foster many forms of identity that separate some groups from other groups
In both we still assume: autonomous, rational, etc. There is always a self
Kant –treating people as ends rather than means
Lec 4 Synthetic Bio and Identity
May 12, 2018
11:58 PM
3594 Page 1
Document Summary
If we think of embryos as having personhood, moral status. One of the major barriers is error rate, fear of unpredictable results. Maternal dna, paternal dna, mitochondrial dna 3 diff parents. Remove nucleus from egg (ethical debate) individual doesn"t have mitochondrial disease edit the genome. People would be aware and have informed consent. Humans vs animals our rationality set us apart. Last 20-30 years integrated emotions and other dimensions of our nature into our definition of identity. Modernity: human that is continuous, rational, universal rights. Last 50 years: this identity dissolving into different strands. Gender identity, race, sexual identities and preferences, try to foster that type of diversity and make it coalesce with this general idea of a human being. Modern: after ww2 tried to come up with something we all share. Post modern: foster many forms of identity that separate some groups from other groups. In both we still assume: autonomous, rational, etc.
