Module B1: You and Your Genes

Throughout the module, candidates are introduced to genetic technologies that open up new possibilities for individuals and society. In doing so, they present significant ethical issues for citizens. Candidates explore some of the ideas people use to make ethical decisions. This enables them to engage with issues which regularly appear in the media, such as genetic testing, gene therapy and cloning research.

Issues covered in this module may be very sensitive for candidates.

Issues for Citizens:

How and why do people find out about their genes? What decisions do people make with this information?

Questions which Science may help to answer:

How can and should genetic information be used?
How can we use our knowledge of genes to prevent disease?

Module B1.3: How and can genetic information be used? How can we use our knowledge of genes to prevent disease?

3. Recall that a small number of disorders are caused by alleles of a single gene, limited to Huntington's disorder and cystic fibrosis;

4. Recall the symptoms of Huntington's disorder and cystic fibrosis;

5. Understand why a person with one recessive allele will not show the associated characteristic, but is a carrier and can pass the allele to their children;

6. Interpret (through family trees or genetic diagrams) the inheritance of a single gene disorder, including the risk of a child being a carrier;

7. Understand the implications of testing adults and foetuses for alleles which cause genetic disease, for example:

• Whether or not to have children at all;
• Whether or not a pregnancy should be terminated.

8. Understand the implications of testing embryos for embryo selection (Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis);

9. Understand the implications of the use of genetic testing by others, (for example, for genetic screening programmes, by employers and insurance companies);

11. In the context of genetic testing (when provided with additional information about the reliability and risks of genetic tests) or gene therapy be able to:

• distinguish questions which could be addressed using scientific approach, from questions which could not;
• say clearly what the issue is;
• summarise different views that may be held;
• identify, and develop, arguments based on the ideas that: the right decision is the one which leads to the best outcome for the majority of people involved; certain actions are never justified because they are unnatural or wrong;

12. in the context of use of genetic testing by others:

• can distinguish what can be done (technical feasibility), from what should be done (values);
• can explain why different courses of action may be taken in different social and environmental contexts