The UK Government is thinking of introducing new laws for DNA testing & storage for new born babies. The idea behind the plans is for every new born baby to have their DNA tested & stored, the intention is that for future generations this would make crime investigation & the justice system to be more just, swift and of course correct in it's decisions as to whether defendants are not-guilty or guilty via the use of DNA testing. The idea is for a "safer", "juster" future for the UK public. Now i heard this on the radio, and i am definately a YES 100% towards this idea, someone phoned in a 55 year old man, with a well thought out side to his story: He said, quite justly that he was urging the UK public to say NO to these plans, his reasons were basically that the UK justice system needs to sort its self out in several major areas before it introduces even more new plans. He mentioned that a typical sentence length for murder was: 7-8 years and yet stealing of cash, cars or major fraud brought a typical sentence of 25 years. the difference he explained (which i totally agree with) is that one is a materialistic loss and the other is human life, and that the sentences should be the opposite (as an example). Now i agree with this.. but i say Yes.. why i hear you ask? Out of everything in our universe, the subject we our the most vague in our knowledge about is ourselves - Humans, this splits into two different areas we are most unsure about: - Our Brain - Our DNA Structure The more we can understand about these two complex subjects, the better off the human race will be. Better understanding scientifically & medically of these two subjects will bring through break throughs in the medical and scientific world, enabling us to understand the causes and likes of cancer, aids, diseases and viruses. Not only will this have a much needed positive effect in our justice system, as it will obviously be more accurate, but it will have great positive implications for identification, therefore cutting down on fraud and theft. Also as alot of us here on the forums know through Distributed Projects such as Folding@Home and the HumanGnome and as i have said before in this thread, the implications in medical terms would be extroadinary, perhaps not immediate, but eventually it would hugely advance our knowledge of the DNA structure and help with curely the likes of aids e.t.c as i have said. I realise people will say a full understanding of the human dna structure will cause problems in mass-cloning & other futuristic worries, because yes, knowledge is a great responsibility, and there will always be those who misuse this, but having the knowledge also means we can combat it, quicker than ever before. It's not full proof, mistakes will be made if it is introduced, but with everything in government or any new business / idea or industry there always will be mistakes & problems. I believe that the overall effect that introducing this would have would greatly increase the health of the human race, the life expectancy, cut down on crime, and have a great positive effect in terms of justice for our justice system. I hope this provokes some good thoughts from you all, it certainly did from me Remember this is a debate, not an arguement.
I don't see why not for this idea. DNA storage and analysis in the quest for the understanding of the ultimate biological computational and blueprint structure is a good step. Whether this will lead to a juster future isn't too clear, but if it means a greater understanding of our own DNA then why not.
Anyone watch the UK evening news at 18:30pm? - There was an article about this DNA storage.. quite interesting actually..
True, but there is still a chance of a false match. Although statistically unlikely it is still possible. Surely its better for a guilty person to get away with a murder rather than an innocent person being falsely convited of a murder? Storing peoples "genetic finderprint" will have no effect on medical discoveries. The fingerprint stored contains only "size" information of hypervariable regions of DNA known as Short Tandem Repeats (STRs). These regions are only a few hundred bases each (about 16 are used), this is pretty small considering the rest of the genome is 3x10^9 bases! Also these STR regions are currently considered by some as Junk DNA, which accounts for its hypervariable nature. As for folding at home and other protein secondary structure prediction algorithms, I'll give my right ball if they ever predict anything close to a true X-ray diffraction solved structure. The full structure (or sequence) has already been sequenced as have several other species and the medical benefits have already become apparent.Hoever to clone an organism you dont need to know any DNA sequence information. Take "Dolly The Sheep", this was achieved by nucleus transfer not DNA sequence manipulation. p.s. I'm a molecular biologist
