Genetic
in sentence
1040 examples of Genetic in a sentence
A company might own, at most, the intellectual property underlying its
genetic
test; and, because the research and development needed to develop the test may have cost a considerable amount, the firm might rightly charge for administering it.
At the same time, molecular biologists have been working to overcome human disease by deciphering the entire sequence of the human genome and constructing tools to correct
genetic
and cellular defects.
Of course, neither environmental nor
genetic
advantages guarantee healthier, happy, successful children.
If democratic societies allow people to spend money to buy environmental advantages for children, how can they prohibit parents from buying
genetic
advantages?
But the argument that
genetic
enhancements are immoral because not all children can receive them is flawed.
So, in the future the critical question will be this: "Who decides how
genetic
advantages are distributed?"
Unfortunately, provision and regulation of
genetic
enhancement technology will not be easy.
Unlike healthcare, there are almost no limits to
genetic
enhancements.
Today, for example, Europeans travel to the US to purchase human eggs from young women chosen on the basis of their presumed
genetic
characteristics.
Ultimately, hyper-human
genetic
enhancements will become feasible, too, and the economic and social advantages that wealthy countries maintain could be expanded into a
genetic
advantage.
The only alternative to this bleak possibility seems remote today and may never be viable: a single global state in which all children are provided with the same
genetic
enhancements and the same opportunities for health, happiness, and success.
Harvard’s former president Larry Summers touched off one explosion in 2005 when he tentatively suggested a
genetic
explanation for the difficulty his university had in recruiting female professors in math and physics.
More recently, scientists have developed techniques that take this process a step further, using
genetic
engineering to induce agricultural crops to synthesize high-value pharmaceuticals.
One reason is that such crops rely on research tools used in molecular biology, including
genetic
engineering.
African governments have been told that
genetic
engineering is dangerous, with many Europeans and their national governments – as well as transnational NGOs such as Greenpeace – determined to stay away from it.
Most of the food consumed by Americans is either genetically modified or exposed to
genetic
modification somewhere in the production process.
Opponents of
genetic
engineering in food and agriculture have several arguments, none of which appears to be valid.
But private corporations undertake only about half of all agricultural research, whether or not it involves
genetic
engineering.
Likewise, synthetic biology will be possible before too long, with scientists using the huge amount of increasingly available and inexpensive
genetic
data to design DNA from scratch – a practice that has applications in medicine, agriculture, and even biofuel production.
Now, these firms’ hired hands are upping the ante with “gene drives,” a deliberately invasive technology designed to propagate
genetic
material across an entire population or species.
Rather than merely altering the crops that farmers bring to harvest, biotechnology corporations will now try to control the
genetic
makeup of every component in the agricultural ecosystem, from the pollinators to the weeds and pests.
The questions on which the case turns are whether
genetic
patents help or hamper research, and whether patients should have to pay a license fee to a biotechnology corporation to be tested for predisposition to disease.
One of the plaintiffs is Lisbeth Ceriani, a 43-year-old woman with breast cancer whose doctors recommended that she be tested for two
genetic
mutations involved in some hereditary forms of the disease.
Those who oppose
genetic
patents claim that they also deny US constitutional rights, making this the first time a
genetic
patent has been challenged on human rights grounds.
But, whatever the merits of the claim that
genetic
patents benefit research and treatment, that is a practical, rather than a legal, argument.
In order to gain legal “standing” to sue Myriad Genetics, critics of
genetic
patents – including the American Medical Association, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the American Civil Liberties Union – had to find an issue that could be adjudicated on a constitutional basis.
That is a clever argument, but is it really the source of people’s profound disquiet about
genetic
patenting?
Is a
genetic
variant a “product of nature” or a “discovery”?
How can a commercial firm not only deny me the right to know my own
genetic
profile unless I pay their fee for the diagnostic test, which might be fair enough, but also to prevent any other firm from offering me a similar test unless those firms pay it a license fee?
Proprietary rights for commercial firms over the most basic element of an individual’s
genetic
identity should not be enforceable.
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