GATTACA Movie and Designer Babies

Reading Questions – GATTACA and Designer Babies
Goldberg, Allen. “Parental vanity corrupts a lifesaving technology.” The News Journal,
[Wilmington, Delaware] 28 Feb. 2009: A11.

http://henrystrongingoldberg.blogspot.com/2009/02/httpwww.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mgoldberg17-2009feb17,0,4288749.story

1. The movie, GATTACA, is copyrighted 1997. What services are the Fertility Institutes (Los Angeles) offering to patients that are similar to a scene in the movie?

2. From information that is written the news article, answer these questions:
a. What is “in vitro” fertilization?”
b. What is “preimplantation genetic diagnosis?”

3. What is Fanconi anemia?

4. In the author’s opinion, why would creating “designer babies” cause problems for families who are trying to have a baby free of fatal genetic deseases?

5. Most cases of Fanconi anemia are inherited as autosomal recessive traits (scientists are still researching the genetic inheritance of the disease – it’s more complicated than presented in this question). If “A” represents a normal gene and “a” represents a defective gene, show, in the Punnett Square below, how a child can inherit Fanconi anemia.

6. How can Fanconi anemia be treated?

http://henrystrongingoldberg.blogspot.com/ Update: March 5, 2009. The Fertility Institutes have backed away, for now, from offering designer baby services.
http://henrystrongingoldberg.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_DearHenryArchive.html

Wickelgren, Ingrid. “Designer Genes, Will DNA Technology Let Parents Design Their Kids?” Current Science, Weekly Reader Corporation [Riverside, New Jersey] 3 Dec. 2004: pp. 10-11.
ABC News. "Boy or Girl?" Couples Choose Unborn Children's Sex." 25 March 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/Story?id=1767206&page=1

Here is a link to my posting with the reading questions that go with the movie GATTACA:
http://cavalierscience.blogspot.com/2009/03/gattaca-movie-and-designer-babies.html

Teach With the Movies Lessons (free)
https://www.facebook.com/teachwithmovies

Another post of interest:
http://cavalierscience.blogspot.com/2010/07/longevity-genes-found-predict-chances.html

If you find any links in my blog that do not work, please let me know by leaving a comment.  I would like to keep by blog up-to-date and relevant.