Week 9: Biochemistry

Gene Therapy

Frankly, I think the essence of the morality of gene therapy argument is lost on me. I don't understand why there is a stark dividing line between drug therapies and gene therapies. Both seek to alter the biochemical basis for disease.

I guess you could say that we don't know where gene therapy is taking us. But the same can be said for most new pharmaceutical therapies. There are no guarantees that they will not have some unforseen consequence, and the same is true for gene therapy.

I see the issue as a continuum. The question is how much do we want to intervene to improve or prolong the human condition called life. I don't see gene therapy as anything other than a point on that continuum. Very good questions can be raised about the wisdom of intervention of many kinds: what will the effect be on the planet, on the health of others? Will the therapy be available to everyone or only the affluent? But I don't think that the discussion of gene therapy requires a separate conversation.

Definitions

The interesting one was:
"Biochemistry is the study of molecules (e.g. proteins) in the absence of the rest of the organism"

Obviously, this is a fairly offensive characteristic of a scientific pursuit. If not offensive, at least stupid. It reflects a small-minded, mechanistic approach to investigating life and the nature of it. It's silly to think that you can study molecules in isolation and not take into account the effect of the larger and enormously complex systems they exist in.

I will say though that I clicked through to the website from which this was quoted, and I don't think it was really as idiotic as it sounds. It was trying to draw a distinction between different life sciences that look at cells. I think those sciences so necessarily overlap that this distinction was contrived to create boundaries that don't really exist.

Animations
As usual, my computer wasn't happy with these animations. I did manage to see one which illustrated an electron circling an atom. If I remember correctly, though, I think it was wrong. I though electrons move in and out of certain paths; that an orbital is not a defined path but that it actually represents a route that varies quite a bit. So, what I did see was a bit misleading (I think?...)