The main purpose of the paper is to study and analyze the issues connected with the genetic mutations and the key specifications that have great importance for the contemporary medicine.
Genetic mutation is a change within a genetic series that forms a gene. It is therefore the key reason of diversity emergence among all the organisms. Mutation can occur at any level with any possible result. There are many specific types of mutations. First, when identifying mutation, the highest attention has to be paid towards the reproduction system in order to establish whether it is inherited. Hereditary mutations occur in the reproductive cells. The change takes place in the cells’ DNA at the moment these cells form a combination that will produce the offspring. In such case, mutation will be present in all cells of the offspring as well. However, some of genetic mutations affect only the carrier of the gene.
The other type of genetic mutation is point mutation. This mutation type is usually the result of a mistake that takes place during the DNA replication process. It is also called a single-base mutation as it defines the replacement, insertions or erasure of the nucleotide. In case the result of such a mistake is the alternation of the single cell base, the mutation emerges.
The high level of changes that occur in the individual’s life together with genetic mutation has been logically followed by the series of researches aimed to find a technology that will give the ability to identify the presence of cell change before the mutation affects its carrier. Cracking Your Genetic Code deeply analyzes this issue as the emergence of contemporary methods of the mutation identification also arise the series of ethical and moral issues (Roth, 2012).
The genetic mutation can be revealed through the procedure of genome typing that identifies the presence of particular mistakes. The procedure of getting sequenced genome of the individual will soon be available for everyone as the cost will fall for less than a thousand dollars. The master templates of our genes are absolutely equal in 99.99% of cases. The identical nature of our genomes gives the ability to value their sequencing. This genetic mapping can identify mutations and therefore gives the possibility to make an early diagnosis and provide the required medical treatment before the development of the problem.
The ability to identify genetic mutation before the emergence of the outside signs of the disease is a great achievement of the contemporary medicine. However, this issue is much more diverse that it can be seen from the first glance. The patient might not want to know whether or not there is a mutation in his/her cells as this knowledge completely changes all the life of the person. Therefore, a series of ethical questions arise. Knowing about the disease that will kill one earlier or the fact that person will be suffering from severe pain during the last years of life can hurt much more than physical pain does (Cutraro & Epstein Ojavlo, 2011).
This knowledge can seriously affect one’s life views and general attitude to the society. This includes cases when the individual is affected by the genetic mutation or is just a carrier. Another problem arises when the person has to decide whether he/she wants to have children or not as now it is known that the baby might inherit the genome and therefore be affected by the disease (Cutraro & Epstein Ojavlo, 2011). Another issue comes when talking about the second parent as in case he/she also has the genetic mutation, the probability of the inherited mutation for the child doubles.