Genetic engineering has the possibility to help a lot of people individually, but could also help the world. Unfortunately, sometimes these two things disagree with what would be best. This conundrum can be compared to communism on paper versus communism in practice. Communism is the government directly trying to make the people under them all equal. Genetic engineering has the possibility to lift people up out of genetic disorders, making them physically equal to anyone else. However, like communism in practice, it has a lot of problems and complications when actually trying to achieve this goal.
As time has gone on, depression has been revealed to be a genetic condition for at least 50% of the afflicted individuals. While it has not been proven that creativity and mental illness have a connection, there is no denying that those who are depressed can create beautiful pieces of art. Vincent Van Gogh, an artist known to have struggled with depression and anxiety, is probably the most well known. He died by suicide. Edger Allen Poe also suffered from depression, and also most likely from bipolar disorder. He died from alcohol abuse and medical complications. Art therapy has recently become a legitimate and widely used form of mental healing for patients. Through art therapy, people express how they are feeling without needing to say it aloud. However, is the beauty of art created through pain enough compared to the number of lives lost because of depression? Genes are not the only reason people become depressed, but just as a higher chance of becoming addicted to alcohol is passed down through people’s genes, so is a tendency to become depressed. One study found over 170 genes connected to depression or other psychiatric disorders. This tells us that while it is currently not possible to completely prevent depression in some individuals using CRISPR, it might be possible to bring the numbers down. Over 700,000 people die from suicide every year, with an assumed 20 people attempting for every 1 success. Besides this, one in every eight people are living with a mental disorder, a label that includes depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), eating disorders, and other psychiatric conditions. One of the reasons people are so set on having a diverse community in different institutions is because when people of different backgrounds, social statuses and experiences come together, they create a place where everyone is growing their perspectives and creativity by being inspired to see it from a way they couldn’t have seen on their own. Does the death caused by depression call for a genetic intervention?
Genetic information contained a lot of information about the person it came from and their lineage. This boils down to basic genetics. When a child is born, they gain half of their mom’s genes and half of their dad’s, who each gained half of their mom’s genes and half of their dad’s. This means that it is not only possible to track someone’s lineage back with their DNA, but also possible to identify cousins and other family members that you possibly didn’t know of. This becomes a slight issue when the government, or more specifically, the police, gets involved. Originally, collecting DNA only happened when someone had committed a crime and the police wanted to add them to a database in case of a second offense. However, it was found out that in small towns in the states of Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, police have been collecting data from anyone they come into contact with, often without informing the participant that this is an optional collection, or even what they are submitting it for. When DNA is added to a database, it is not just one person’s DNA, but also the DNA of their parents, their parent’s parents, their cousins and aunts and uncles and even children. This method of applying the information found in DNA to catch criminals is called investigative genetic genealogy and happens on the federal level, state level, and county level all over. CODIS is the database that holds all genetic information,from unsolved mysteries to day-to-day police DNA samples. DNA collections are important, and help police in narrowing down suspects quickly, but can also cause problems when police take it without asking. Does the government have the right to collect this personal information without permission?
In situations like the one with the Golden State Killer, investigative genetic genealogy becomes a boon, identifying the killer through the use of logic and genetic profiling, the process of tracing an individual down from identified gene sequences to an unidentified one. As the Golden State Killer was both a rapist and a murderer, police had his DNA from rape kits submitted. By submitting this DNA to GEDmatch, an online public database of people’s genetic information, they were able to find his family members, and how they were related to him. Then, using knowledge already found (general age, sex, etc.), police were able to identify the person who was the Golden State Killer. After that, it became only a matter of time until he was captured. However, because GEDmatch is public, it would be possible for anyone to access this information. When GEDmatch’s database has 2% of America’s population’s genes, over 90% of people of European descent would be able to find at least a 3rd cousin within.
In Boston they are doing something similar with the Boston Rape Kit Initiative. In July, 2023, the Boston Police department received a federal grant and decided to put it to work by tracking down different rapists through their DNA. This series of crackdowns flushed out cold cases and brought new evidence to light, specifically identifying the rapist’s family members, or even who the rapist was through the use of the federal database, made up of all convicted criminal’s DNA. With over 2,000 kits to test, the backlog created by this initiative has been extreme, but the relief felt by the people who submitted the Rape Kit is worth the work.