Week 6: Biotech and Art

This week’s discussion is focused on biotechnology and art. It is about experiments with animals, creating hybrids between species etc. In recent years, there are many artists entering labs and working with live cells and animals, which create lot of controversy. The area that interest me the most is on animal biotechnology.

Animal biotechnology is a branch of biotechnology in which molecular biology techniques are used to genetically engineer (i.e. modify the genome of) animals to improve their suitability for pharmaceutical, agricultural or industrial applications. Animal biotechnology has many potential uses. Since the early 1980s, transgenic animals have been created with increased growth rates, enhanced lean muscle mass, enhanced resistance to disease or improved use of dietary phosphorous to lessen the environmental impacts of animal manure. Transgenic poultry, swine, goats and cattle that generate large quantities of human proteins in eggs, milk, blood or urine also have been produced, with the goal of using these products as human pharmaceuticals. 

However, despite these advantages and potentials that transgenic animals have presented, they also bring in lots of controversy. People are concerned of where the experimenting of changing animal genetics would take us. There is a video that depicted the frightening results of animal biotechnology, called The Animal Farm. The video features an imaginary farm that consists of various transgenic animals, looking at the side effects of genetic modification and selective breeding. An example shown in the video is while we selectively breed the cows to be more and more bulky to provide us with more meat, it goes too extreme that the cows can no longer mate on their own. Human have to step in to help them to breed, otherwise they will go extinct. There are lots of other examples introduced in the video, which triggers the question about whether genetic modification is ethical.  Well, I believe there is no right or wrong answer. Animal biotechnology is a double-edged sword. It introduced massive improvement to agriculture and pharmaceutical fields, but if human gets too greedy, it will create unpredictable side effects on the society. I suppose while the practice gets more widespread, the society should come out with specific law to govern the practice, to set the boundary before it gets too far.

Reference:

1. “Introduction to Biotechnology.” PAControl. 2012. Image. Web. 7 Nov 2012.http://www.pacontrol.com/introduction-to-biotechnology.htmlLinks to an external site..

2.  Kelty, Chris. “Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?”. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.

3. Regulate Designer Babies. 2009. n.p. Web. 5 Nov 2012. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/regulate-designer-babies_1.jpg>.

4. “The Need to Regulate “Designer Babies”.” Scientific American. N.p., 04 2009. Web. 5 Nov 2012. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=regulate-designer-babies>.

5.  Levy, Ellen. “Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications.”Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts. Eds. Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, and Victoria Vesna. University of Chicago Press: 2011