Within a surprisingly short period of time, the ability to isolate and transfer genes within and across different species has turned into one of the biggest growth areas in scientific research the world over, and one of the hottest areas of ethical debate. New discoveries are being announced almost by the week, and a technology is rapidly emerging whose products and applications are beginning to appear in our society. The prospect of genetically engineered food on our tables, crop plants in our fields and pigs' hearts in our bodies has either become reality, or has necessitated some serious ethical thinking about what should and should not become reality. The most spectacular example of the impact of biotechnology has been the unprecedented worldwide stir over the implications of cloning, following the breakthrough in sheep nuclear transfer at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. But it arose out of a piece of genetic engineering whose novelty in many ways encapsulates the revolution which is taking place.
Many people suffer from the debilitating lung disease emphysema.
The result is damage to the lung wall, which can eventually be fatal. Genetic engineering could offer at least three alternative methods for treating the disease, involving humans, animals or plants. In theory, it might be possible to go to the root of the problem using human gene therapy, attempting to incorporate enough of a non-defective gene into the lungs of the patient to increase the production of the protein. Such an approach is probably a long way off, but, as an alternative, genetic modification could be used to create novel ways of producing the protein in another biological organism, on behalf of humans. It could then be purified and administered to patients as a conventional drug.