Week 7: Genetic Engineering and Gene Therapy with Dr. Charles Gersbach

For the past 7 weeks, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the faculty seminars, which have given me both breadth and depth of knowledge in the many disciplines within biological science. I came into Duke last year with a focused interest in cell/molecular biology and genetics and apathy towards other biological areas of study such as evolutionary anthropology and ecology, but after spending a year taking biology courses and attending these faculty seminars, I’ve begun to really appreciate the diversity of biology and the worth each individual discipline contributes to science and society as a whole. I’ve also really appreciated being able to hear everybody describe their path to becoming a scientist and all of the hurdles and choices they had to make; some were more straightforward than others, but ultimately, many speakers placed an emphasis on striving to do what you enjoy, regardless of all the trials and tribulations you might encounter.

I could say plenty of good things about every seminar, but I’ll be choosing to focus on Dr. Charles Gersbach’s seminar specifically for this blog post. His talk fascinated me for a variety of reasons: for one, my dad is an engineer, so I grew up thinking that I knew a good amount about how engineers think and the type of work they did. However, he’s a structural engineer, dealing with massive amounts of steel and concrete, which is the polar opposite of Dr. Gersbach’s work with genetic engineering on the molecular level in biological systems. Being able to hear Dr. Gersbach detail a completely different type of engineering, as well as his perspective on what constitutes as engineering as the scientific community becomes increasingly interdisciplinary.

In addition to that, Dr. Gersbach’s work on gene therapy and gene editing immediately intrigued me, since I’ve been avidly interested in the topic since high school after first learning about the concept for a research paper. For a period of time, I had even considered going into his line of work as a career path before orienting myself more towards cell/molecular biology and/or clinical medicine. Regardless, I’m still deeply interested in both the technical aspects of how gene therapy is done and the potential ethical and social implications that genome editing in humans generates, should it become more precise and possibly even marketable in the future. I’m especially excited to see how geneticists will utilize the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which has immense potential, to both improve gene modification as well as discover new things about biological systems and the organisms they reside in.

I was also surprised to find out that the label “GMO” specifically indicates the insertion of genes into cells, so it doesn’t include precise modification of sequences such as changing a base from one type to another. Some of my friends are fervently anti-GMO, but I’m sure they’d be surprised to learn that plenty of foods we eat are actually genetically modified, although in a different way from the ones actually labelled as GMO.

I’m a bit sad that next week will be the end to all of these faculty seminars, but I’m still looking forward to them nonetheless. Thanks to all of the faculty who have taken time out of their day to share with us their individual paths to science and their research!

 

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