Weekly Research Report

Name: Kai Sunahara

Date: 3/16/17
Directions: After reading and annotating, complete the following table and collect it with other
weekly reports to help you develop your findings and prepare for the assessments.
Assignment (what type of source was assigned): EBSCOhost
Title: Editing away blindness
Author/Speaker: Le Page, Michael
Pages read (if applicable): 3
MLA Citation:
Le Page, Michael. Editing Away Blindness. New Scientist, vol. 231, no. 3084, 30 July 2016, p. 8.
EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sch&AN=117031197&site=ehost-live.
Guiding Question(s): Are the lifesaving capabilities of genetic engineering worth the ethical
questions?

Summary statements of the author/speakers main ideas

This article talks about all of the possible outcomes that might happen in the near future that
involve CRISPR. Although there has been many positive outcome in animals, it is an obvious
fact that people aren't animals so testing it on humans will be an ethical problem. The experiment
in China for example is basically doing it on people who have no other chances of living. The
Sichuan Universitys West China Hospital in Chengdu was just given ethical approval for this
treatment.

Embedded quotation (page #) How does it answer/relate to the Guiding Question?

In August, a group in China It shows that this technology is taking a huge step
plans to treat lung cancer with the from just animal trials to actually performing this
technique on a human.

As things stand, CRISPR will be This shows that this technology still has a lot of
of limited use for treating eye ethical questions that have not been settled yet.
diseases even if it proves safe and
effective in human trials
 Unfamiliar words Definitions

LCA Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) is an inherited

retinal degenerative disease characterized by severe
loss of vision at birth.

Adeno-associated viruses Adeno-associated virus is a small virus which

infects humans and some other primate species.

PD-1 Programmed cell death protein 1, also known as

PD-1 and CD279 (cluster of differentiation 279), is
a cell surface receptor that plays an important role
in down-regulating the immune system and
promoting self tolerance by suppressing T cell
inflammatory activity.