Chemistry Week 11

What are your thoughts on the ethics of “gene therapy”

In terms of ethics I think it is a grey area. My overall assessment is that we simply do not yet have the experience, knowledge or wisdom to begin using this therapy. We need to acknowledge the enormity of the fact the this is biologically merging humans with other life forms. Granted a relationship like this already occurs with viruses when we are infected. However, folks doing/researching gene therapy are , in a way, attempting to mimic the brilliance of viruses that took perhaps millions (or billions!) of years to evolve. I don't think it is unethical to research into this but I do think it is very  irresponsible and quite arrogant to start actually using this therapy so soon in the life of genetics studies. I mean in comparison the amount of time humans have spent researching DNA and genes and the timeline of the evolution of DNA and genes, the former is barely a blink of the eye.  

The Chemistry of life: http://www.bookrags.com/research/biochemistry-wap/

This article approached discussing the importance of biochemistry by listing several Nobel Prizes that have been

Awarded in recent years. These included the 1997 Chemistry prize shred by 3 scientists for their discovery of the 

'engine" that carries the compound ATP and the another scientist who discovered the sodium-potassium pump in cell membranes.

It also included a story about 19th century scientist Freidrich Wohler who challenged the 

conventional belief that living matter was not subject to similar behavior and laws that non-living matter was. I am certainly fascinated by the continued inquiry and revelation into the molecular 

aspects of life and at the same time concerned that it is just more of the same reductionist attitudes and beliefs: 

that you can cut away bits and pieces of the living thing and still understand it as a whole. When these enzymes and chemical

constituents are sliced away from the living form they are not the same. While I am interested to learn more about these discoveries

it is my hope that those researching them stay connected with the ineffable and spiritual side of things.

Animation: I checked out the animation on Molecules and Geometry. . It stated that molecular shapes re determined

by the number of electrons around the "central species". I think that means the nucleus of that particular molecule?

There are simple shapes like linear, bent, pyramidal and tetrahedral as well as more complex shapes like trigonal bypyrimidal,

square pyramidal and (my favorite) octahedral. I don't know how accurate the representations are

but it is certainly fascinating to imagine these tiny shapes existing even within my own body.