Using the back-casting method to back our research into our future scenario. Looking at how genetic modification exists today and how it could progress in the future:

“Newly fertilized eggs before gene editing, left, and embryos after gene editing and a few rounds of cell division. A study published on Wednesday announced that edited human embryos can repair common and serious disease-causing gene mutations.”

NYTimes article

Scientists in the USA have successfully used genetic modification to alter genes in human embryos. The clinical research was a huge achievement for modern day science and marks a major milestone as the scientists were able to repair the probability of disease-causing mutation.

Following on about the issue of early loss of fertility for women and the yearn to bear children, an article popped up on my Facebook feed that I find is interesting and relatable to this topic.

The article is about two monkeys being born in China. These two monkeys however, are not your typical monkeys that would be climbing on trees or be found mimicking your actions. According to ABC News, these two monkeys are different as they are the first two primates to be cloned from a non-embryonic cell. Although there had been previous attempts to clone monkeys, these two monkeys named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, distinguish themselves as previous attempts made were using fetal cells instead.

This step made in scientific study raises the question of whether it will be possible to clone our own human species in the future.

Could this be the answer to the unfortunate circumstances of not being able to enter motherhood for some women?

What would this mean for the human population?

What is the likelihood of this to occur in real life and their pros and cons?

Would it end up causing more heartbreak and distress than gratitude, love and joy?

For these two monkeys to be born, it took a total of 127 eggs until success was seen.

Born on the 5th July 1996 in Scotland, Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from a similar technique as the two monkeys above were created.

…

References:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-25/chinese-scientists-clone-monkeys/9360148

The following are futuring methods that are introduced and considered within past and upcoming studios:

• Quadrant method (week 2 and 3)
• Drivers of change (week 2 and 3)
• Scenarios – including personas and sited scenarios (week 2, 4 and 5)
• STEEP analysis – social, technological, economic, environmental and political (week 2 and 4)
• Systems thinking (week 3)
• Collaborative mapping (week 3)
• STEM (week 3)
• Double variant (week 3)
• Interviewing techniques (week 4)
• Visualisation techniques (week 5)
• Retro-fitting (week 5)
• Forecasting / backcasting (week 5)
• Experimental collage (week 5)
• Iterative prototyping (week 8)
• Fast-failing (week 8)

A few things we should reading up on in regards to our project.

• Japan’s Unit 731 – Experimentation on humans during WW2.
• Josef Mengele
• http://umk.techamigo.net/
• Gattaca – Andrew Niccol
• HELPFUL RESOURCE: https://futurism.com/
  • Was recommended to me by some science tutors and it’s all about the future and the development of science etc.

In a day and age where gender equality is increasingly advocated, some women are found to be ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ rather than choosing to enter motherhood.

With this said, there need not be the loss of desire to bear offspring, but rather this just comes with the fear that it wouldn’t be made possible when the suitable time comes.

Women and girls find themselves looking into other methods to fall pregnant in the hopes to overcome this unfortunate situation.

One of them is in vitro fertilisation.

According to IVF Australia, in vitro fertilisation, or more widely known as IVF, is “a procedure, used to overcome a range of fertility issues, by which an egg and sperm are joined together outside the body, in a specialised laboratory’. Furthermore, ‘the fertilised egg (embryo) is allowed to grow in a protected environment for some days before being transferred into the woman’s uterus increasing the chance that a pregnancy will occur”.

The success of IVF, though increasing, is still quite low and dependent on various factors such as age, risk and personal situation.

This can be depicted in the movie Baby Mama. It explores the struggles of a single woman in her late thirties in the attempt to have a baby.

This gamble to bypass biological inequality – early loss of fertility for women, is able to help some strive forward without needing to constantly worry about time constraints and societal expectations of delaying motherhood.

However, is this option just providing false hope?

Only time will tell.

References:

 IVF Treatment & Procedures, viewed 16 August 2018, <https://www.ivf.com.au/fertility-treatment/ivf-treatment>.

BBC World Service – The Documentary 2018, The Great Egg Freeze, viewed 16 August 2018, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csxfj0>.

Youtube 2018, Baby Mama, viewed 22 August 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsTb5TWymY>.

• The situation that we face is this: bodies are thought of increasingly as the exclusive property of an individual for one to do with as one sees fit. Bodies are also construed as malleable and “constructable.” (Elshtain J. 2005)
• Elshtain posits that is the agency over one’s body, the ability to destroy and develop (abortion, of euthanasia/assisted suicide) has become widely accepted- modern concepts of ‘human rights’.
• “we are fast returning to a world where persons carry a price tag, and where the cash value of some persons . . . is far greater than that of others.” (Commonweal) – the reversion back to slavery, people are not born equal.
• A comparison is drawn between Gattaca and prenatal testing. The function of prenatal tests, despite protests of the contrary, is to provide parents with the knowledge and assurance that their pregnancies are ‘normal’. There is encouragement given to ‘eliminating a whole category of persons’, and as this becomes the norm, the respect and treatment of disabled children will accordingly shift – “diminishing… responsibility to create welcoming environments for all children.”
• “The proliferation of genetic testing, concludes Reinders, will most certainly have discriminatory effects because it puts everything under the domain of choice, and parents of children with “special needs” become guilty of irresponsible behavior in “choosing” to bear such children and burdening society in this way.”
• “The body is the foe”. The worship of perfection has unforeseen consequences in the future. As the approach of the age of cloning, the eradication of old age and disease draws close, tension between religious/supersites and and the questions that humans have been asking has shifted from a discussion of “is this right?” to “is this legal?”.
• Her argument is summarised in the statement: “The heart of the matter lies in a loss of appreciation for the complex nature of human embodiment.”
• Tension is created between groups that are cautious of the direction of this technology (religious/superstitious), and they are labelled stifling human progression/rights and a better future. Is this right or wrong?

What does it mean to be ‘human’? How will this definition change? If disease and disabilities can be eradicated, does it become wrong or ‘irresponsible’ to foster a disabled life, to design our descendants, to choose to be elderly?

Reference:

Is Human Nature Obsolete? : Genetics, Bioengineering, and the Future of the Human Condition, edited by Harold W. Baillie, et al., MIT Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uts/detail.action?docID=3338810.
Created from uts on 2018-08-16 15:43:05.

By Samantha Klein

Genetic modification (GM) according to the Cambridge dictionary is: “the process of changing the structure of the genes of a living thing in order to make it healthier, stronger, or more useful to humans”. 

GM or genetic engineering offers a Future of endless opportunities as scientists have developed a means to use genetic information to recreate organisms. After thousands of years of natural evolution, humankind is now on the brink of being able to take active control over our own evolutionary process. Right now, genetic engineering is already practiced and it’s only a matter of time till it becomes mainstream.

“Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should do something” (IVY MAGAZINE, 2017) says biotechnology expert Jaime Metzl. Metzl discusses the very real dangers of this scientific phenomena. He states that humankind do not fully understand the consequences this technology poses, “genetic diversity and mutation have a lot of negative consequences, but they are also our species’ insurance policy against unforeseeable changes in the future” (IVY MAGAZINE, 2017).

For more information: https://jamiemetzl.com/speaking/

References:

Cambridge Dictionary 2018, Cambridge Publishing, viewed 16 August 2018, <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genetic-modification&gt;

MAGAZINE, IVY 2017, IVY MAGAZINE: Genetic Engineering & The Future,  IVY MAGAZINE, <http://magazine.ivy.com/2017/03/genetic-engineering-jamie-metzl/&gt; viewed 16 August 2018

In the year 2040, one government has been developed to control the world and its supplies. With constantly new outbreaks of disease and increasing wealth inequalities, the government decides to invest in a new branch of Genetic Modification – specialised births. In accordance to this new hypothesis, new children will be modified to be gifted in particular skills. Strength, Intelligence, Athleticism and many more attributes are now the objective. In order to develop this new branch of science, the government chooses the poorest nation in the world, and begins experiments on its inhabitants. Thus its name…Nation X.