Human, Social, and Environmental Impacts of Human Genetic Engineering

Abstract

Genetic engineering can simply be explained as the alteration of an organism's genetic, or hereditary, material to eliminate undesirable characteristics or to produce desirable new ones. Several works have been done on genetic engineering with major focus on its importance ranging from increasing plant and animal food production, diagnosing disease condition, medical treatment improvement, as well as production of vaccines and other useful drugs. Methods in this techniques involve the selective breeding of animals and plants, hybridization (reproduction between different strains or species), and recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA).