Walia's word on stem cells

In this article, Walia talks about current and/or recent research going on in stem cells and what good they are for humanity and its prosperity. Walia speaks about one article in particular, a study done by Mitra Lavasani in 2012, in which they figured out how to make mice age faster and thus see the process of aging from another perspective. While indeed happy with the advancements from the technology, she seems to share the same view that a good portion of the populace shares, and that is that she does not want to extend her human life. Despite the fact that her views conflict with my own, her points will certainly be a big help in the building of my case regardless.


Walia, A. (2014, March 3). Stem cells could extend human life by over 200 years. Retrieved from http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/03/stem-cells-could-extend-human-life-by-over-200-years/

Dvorsky's Article

In this article Dvorsky outlines possible ways to extend human life the main one being stem cell research on supercentenarians. Supercentarians are people who have lived up to 110 years old with no physical or mental hampering. In this source Dvorsky talks about using the blood of supercentarians to replenish and perhaps to bolster the stem cells of those who tend to age more quickly, thus extending life and functionality. This source would be very helpful for our paper because it again gives the audience a bit of background as to what we're researching, but it also helps gives us more ideas on where and how to research.


Dvorsky, G. (2014, April 23). Supercentarian's blood provides clues to extending human life. Retrieved from http://io9.com/supercentenarians-blood-provides-clues-to-extending-hum-1566718220

Bioethics

This source gave an overview about multiple topics related to genetic engineering, including a section specifically on gene therapy. While the purpose of this article is to give an understanding of genetic engineering and where it is going, it also broached multiple issues society may face from genetic engineering in humans, the most prominent being the idea of new germ cells in genetically altered humans that could pose a threat to others without altered genes. If a disease forms from the people with manipulated genes, all of the people without would be at great risk. Despite the fact that this source is not focused solely on genetic engineering, it still offered a lot of input on the subject and raised further questions about the safety of genetic engineering in humans and could thus prove to be a valuable source for our research.

Macer, D. (2000). Bioethics. AccessScience. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content/bioethics/YB000141

New Medicine (Primary)

This source is an online article that discussed new research on genetics that may lead to an alternative to genetic engineering in humans while still providing a way to improve human lives. This article mentioned the idea of using personalized medicine to help people with specific genotypes. The idea is that the drugs could be used to restore amounts of proteins in deficient neurons, thus leading to improved health for many people because it could eventually lead to curing diseases and other serious  conditions. Using medicine to target specific parts of the human body is much less controversial than modifying human genetics, and with further research, could become a very viable alternative to genetic engineering in humans. With all of its detail on an alternative method to improving the quality of human lives, this article will surely prove to be a good source for our topic.


Genetic technique explored for preventing intellectual disabilities. (2015, January 22). Retrieved from http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/genetic-technique-explored-for-preventing-intellectual-disabilities/81250838/  

Washington Post

The Washington Post performed a poll fairly recently asking a series of questions as to whether or not the public wanted to participate in eternal life. It was found that about 50% of the population wanted it while the other half did not. Interestingly it would appear that the country is quite split on the topic. Another interesting point that this article brings up is the fact that minorities seem to want this extension of life more than other demographics. This will be a great source because it gives the audience a good idea of where everyone else stands.

Boorstein, M., Bahrampour, T., (2013, August 6). Americans sharply divided about dramatically extending human lifespan, poll finds. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/2013/08/06/65e76e08-fea9-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html

Genetic Inequality

This source is an online journal article that addressed the negative impact genetic engineering could leave on our society. Techniques like creating designer babies and bigger, stronger athletes were included, and it elaborated on the inequalities that these advantages would create in our society. For example, the fact that many people would not have designer babies -either because of money or choice- could easily create a social hierarchy based off of gene inequality. Dr. Simmons suggested that while genetic engineering could prove useful to extending human lives, it also poses many threats to the stability of our society because of the unfairness it would inevitably forge. I think this would be a good source for our research because of her professional logic about the risks to society.

Simmons, D. (2008) Genetic inequality: Human genetic engineering. Nature Education 1(1):173 Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-inequality-human-genetic-engineering-768

Alternative Options

This article discusses biomedical engineering and all the possibilities it opens up, including ways that it can help to improve the quality of human life. This source looks good because it discussed improving the quality of the human life, rather than the quantity. It mentioned how new research can lead to things like artificial organs, better prosthetics, and other new treatment techniques to improve patient care. What really stood out to me was the fact that this article did not completely obliterate the idea of using genetic engineering in humans, but instead considered other ways it could be used besides simply creating eternal youth. While this source did not directly address genetic engineering to extend lives, it did provide an alternative to improve human life without changing human genetics and thus could be a valuable source for our research.


Weibell, F. J. (2014). Biomedical engineering. Access Science. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content/biomedical-engineering/083600#083600s006

De Grey's Paper (Primary)

This article looks at the ethics of extending the human life. Audrey de Grey, the author of this article, is in favor of extending life and offers many points as to why humanity should be able to choose to live on for as long as they so desire. Furthermore de Grey argues that most of the technology, or at least some of the technology, we need to make this a possibility are already here and whatever isn't here is on its way. De Grey is quite devoted to his position, which may result in more than a little bias, so caution is recommended.


De Grey, A. (2005, February 16). Life extension, human rights, and the rational refinement of repugnance. Retrieved from: http://jme.bmj.com/content/31/11/659.full.pdf+html

Three Reasons Against Biotechnology (Primary)

This source is an article from the Journal of Medical Ethics. In this article, Pijnenburg and Leget (2006) discussed three reasons against the use of genetic engineering for eternal life. Their strongest argument was about justice, i.e. the constant battle between rich and poor, and how to be fair to everyone with no regard to money or status. In this article, they claimed that it would be impossible to come to a totally fair agreement, and thus would present a problem when implementing genetic engineering. Their other two arguments focused on the meaning of life. Overall, Pijnenburg and Leget (2006) concluded that by focusing on extending life, we would forget to consider the quality of that life. Moreover, they reasoned that if humans appreciate and celebrate the lives they are given, they would not be concerned with time (p. 585-587). This article presented a strong argument against extending life with genetic engineering and proved to be an excellent source of information.

Pijnenburg, M. A. & Leget, C. (2006). Who wants to live forever? Three arguments against extending the human lifespan. Journal of Medical Ethics, 33, 585-587. doi: 10.1136/sme.2006.017822

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652797/

Sinclair's Study (Primary)

This is a peer reviewed study for David Sinclair's experiment on mice, in which he was able to reverse the aging process. This, if researched further, can lead to eternal, or at the very least extended, youth. According to Gomes (2013), as mice and, by extension, people age there is a breakdown of genes which results in age (Declining NAD+). While it does not directly answer the question "should  biotechnology be used to extend human life" it will provide the readers or audience with both current events and some background on our topic.



Gomes, A., Price, N., Ling, A., Moslehi, J., Montgomery, M., Rajman, L., White, J. ...
Sinclair, D. (2013, October 25). Declining NAD+ induces a pseudohypoxic state disrupting nuclear-mitochondrial communication during aging. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867413015213