IMRaD paper

Collegiate Opinions on Prenatal Genetic Engineering and its Uses

University of Iowa














Abstract
Many scientists have written, countered, and fought over the ethics behind genetic engineering, and what its implications would be. Over the last few years genetic engineering has taken leaps and bounds forward with the creation and study of the CRISPR technique, and will only continue to become more detrimental to the fields of medicine and biology in the years to come. With so much in store for the future of genetics, what do college students, future scientists and researchers, believe about this up and coming technology? Are college students as secular and scientifically progressive as we make them out to be? A short survey was formed in order to get the opinions of college students on genetic engineering, specifically prenatal. 39 participants were ultimately recorded, all of which took the survey anonymously online. The data showed that students’ opinions were extremely complex, no real opinion taking majority over the other. Although 43% of students with preexisting genetic conditions said they would undergo gene therapy in order to eliminate negative diseases in their children, that still leaves a sizable amount saying either they wouldn’t participate in gene therapy, they couldn’t decide, or that they needed more information. Although this is only one specific example, it shows that students are still quite uncertain as to how they feel about genetic engineering, and this feeling will likely persist into adulthood. As the field evolves and complicates, it seems likely that genetic engineering will have to receive much more scrutiny before it is ethically normalized or rejected.





Introduction

In 2013, the scientific community was blown off its’ feet when they were introduced to a new biological process called clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, better known as CRISPR. CRISPR has the potential to turn the medical world on its’ head, as it offers the ability to search for, cut out, and replace specific genes from our DNA, potentially allowing us to destroy a variety of diseases by simply erasing them from our own gene sequences. This comes with one rather large hurdle, however. This kind of technology could allow gene manipulation, eugenics, and essentially human building possibilities. Are we has a population fit to ‘play god,’ with our own genes? What kind of ethical boundaries does this cross, if any?
It’s generally believed by scientists that we could very well control genetic engineering technologies, like CRISPR, to make large bounds in the medical field. Even at this moment, CRISPR is currently being used in more minimal ways that could provide tremendous results. Lukas Dow’s descriptions of his work showed numerous methods to employ new genetic engineering methods, one of his most prevalent being his work on replicating the genes of cancer cells in order to better understand them (1). Its ambitious research, but one that could become critical in curing cancer if genetic engineering is popularized as a treatment in people. Regardless, just the implications of such technology inspire. It’s effected many in the scientific community, and is best summarized by Robert Jenkins, “…people with genetic problems are given hope that those problems can be spliced out. People, such as myself, are given hope that new organs can be recreated or old ones repaired.” (2) Genetic engineering has always seemed like a distant and hopeful topic, but with the introduction of CRISPR it’s began to seem much less distant than many thought, and has already impacted many in the scientific community.
The extent of how scientists feel about genetic engineering does differ on some levels, however. Some not only support the endeavors, but vouch for them and support the moral ideology of it fervently. Joel Anderson, an ethics and philosophy professor, advocates for genetic engineering to such an extent that he published a paper breaking down and addressing several bioethics arguments that were posed against genetic engineering. That being said, some in the community do believe that the potential of certain genetic engineering technologies could be too for much for us to control. Jagadish Annervaz articulated this contradictory viewpoint well, saying, more or less, that we should not play with fire if we can’t be certain of the scientific and ethical consequences (5). Nonetheless, Annervaz does represent a minority in the scientific community, and many who research genetic engineering are optimistic about its expansion.
This is a constantly expanding field, and one that is constantly being evaluated for its ethics and impact on morality. But, that is considerably from the researchers’ points of view. Do the ‘progressive,’ young, those studying and hoping to be the future of genetic engineering, feel any different? A study was actually conducted in 2003 by researchers Sadler and Zeidler, looking into students’ opinions and justifications pertaining to genetic engineering. In the end, it was a mess of opinions, with students split by many of the purposed ethical questions, and their justifications even more split. It was clearly a concept of heavy contention.
Although Sadler and Zeidler had a very tight, well observed survey, they were merely taking the students answers at face value. There was no information of individual backgrounds of the students, and how that may have also effected the answers.
That’s where I took it upon myself to survey students today. In a society that is constantly moving towards secularism and progressiveness, I hypothesized that modern college and high school students would be more supportive of genetic engineering concepts, and that it would be a strong majority. Regardless, I also tried to address the holes in Sadler and Zeidler’s survey by gathering two of what I considered to be the most prevalent details that would effect a student’s answers: their religion and fervor; as well as their past interactions with genetic engineering.

Methods

Procedure
The overall structure of the research was that of a survey, all of which was conducted online. Participants would follow a link to the online site, where they would then go through a series of questions which will be listed for observation later in the piece. The questions were based around three main concepts: the participants’ background knowledge and interest in genetic engineering; hypothetical situations and the ethics of genetic engineering; and lastly religion and fervor. After filling out all the questions, students were left with one open ended question about the justifications of their choices, though it was specified that you should only do so if you have strong feelings about the subject. All of the information was then compiled into a series of pie charts, as well as the possibility to go back and see individual answers. That being said, the participants answers are still anonymous to me, so I cannot make any presumptions about the participants.
Participants
The participating demographic was intended to be specifically and exclusively students of the high school and undergraduate level. This was done through the sharing of the link of the survey, so that I did not have to question participants’ ages on the survey itself.
Emails were sent to all members of the class, who are all of undergraduate level of varying majors and minors, providing a not perfect, but plausible representation of general undergraduates. On top of this, I posted the link of the survey on social media, on which all the people who’d see the link were high schoolers and other college undergraduates.
With this set in place, I can further split the demographic down by going through answers and separating the strongly religious from non-religious, those who’ve researched genetic engineering and those who haven’t, those who have genetic diseases and those who don’t, etc.
Analysis
The format of the study provides two distinct types of data. The first is what I would call flat, or raw data. It’s the simple results and averages of all the respondents. It allows me to see, on average, how many people agree with prenatal engineering, how many people would actually use it for certain cases, and things like that. However, because I have questions pertaining to the history of participants and their religious beliefs, I can also analyze the ‘in-depth,’ information. That is, separating the participants in several different demographics and how that effected their choices through the rest of the survey. I have several different ways I can categorize and analyze this more specified and personal data, and did so in order to determine the most prevalent categories in terms of how they split the participants’ answers.

Results
Participants’ Backgrounds
The survey ultimately reached 39 people, the culmination of which provided a good mix of participants and different ideologies, at least in terms of what the survey asked. The first specific subgroup the survey tried to look at was past knowledge and future interest in genetic engineering among college students, of which the numbers were split quite well. When asked if they had past interest or ethical consideration in genetic engineering, it was roughly half ‘yes,’ half ‘no,’ and then a slim percentage of ‘slightly.’ To go even further, when asked if they had actually studied genetic engineering, it was just slightly off of being one third ‘yes,’ one third ‘no,’ and one third ‘slightly,’ with ‘no,’ being in slight majority. The second subgroup targeted in the survey was different religions, and how that may have effected their answers. However, the survey again got a fairly even spread of religious subgroups, getting at least six different religious identifications. The next thing measured out was the strength/importance of their religion to them, which was meant to pick up on how much the religion effected their decision making. The question was based on a 1 to 10 scale, one being indifferent or non-religious, and ten being very devout. The results, yet again, showed rather even spread of convictions among those who identified as religious. 
All this collected information that doesn’t directly pertain to genetic engineering was done in the hopes to see some trends among subgroups in correlation to their answers to the questions pertaining to genetic engineering. With the nice spread of both religion and background, it can also be concluded that the data studied in the genetic engineering portion of the survey does accurately cover a balanced demographic of college students.
Ethical Agreement
Now that the subgroups and backgrounds of the participants has been noted, the results of the genetic engineering portion can be studied. The data seems to show semi-contradictory answers, as the data differs between the vague and the specific. The first question that pertains to that merely introduces the idea of prenatal genetic engineering and proceeds to ask if they find the concept as ethically/morally acceptable. Students were seemed to be quite split and indecisive about the idea.
Yet, following this, the survey then asked about some of the more specific uses of prenatal genetic engineering. When asked if participants would use genetic engineering to cure something like autism, 56.4% said yes. And then again, when asked if one would use these strategies to absolve something like depression or schizophrenia, 59% of participants said yes.
Even in the last question asked pertaining to genetic engineering, which takes more personal consideration since it asks about one’s own genetic disorders, about half of the participants who said they themselves had some genetic disorders would undergo gene therapy for the betterment of their children.

Although this data seemed promising, it still appeared too split for one to say that the majority of college students agree with the concepts of genetic engineering. Like past surveys, students seem split and indecisive: against the idea of prenatal genetic engineering; for helping their children in any way they can. It seems clear that the college demographic may not be as secularized and scientifically progressive as I first hypothesized, and that genetic engineering, especially prenatal, still has a long way to go before it begins to become socially acceptable.

Discussion

In the survey of college students over concepts of genetic engineering, two factors were taken into consideration by the survey, those being religious affiliation and past knowledge of genetic engineering. While the results showed that there were no dominant subgroups, and all of the data, including that of importance of religion to one’s life, were relatively split, this led to the conclusion that the sample population in this survey portrayed a surprisingly balanced and accurate depiction of college students. With this in mind, it was determined that students seemed to have complicated, and even contradictory, opinions on the concepts of prenatal genetic engineering. While it began with only 23% saying they agreed with the idea of prenatal genetic engineering, by the last question 43% said they would change their own genetic makeup for the betterment of their children. This data was complex, and didn’t seem to draw any real conclusions about how college and high school students feel about genetic engineering. Although genetic engineering has grown exponentially over the last ten or twenty years, and secularism is assumed to be extremely prevalent on college campuses, students seem just as hesitant and indecisive on the topic as they were ten or fifteen years ago.
That being said, the largest take away from the credibility of the results is just the small sample size. Although demographically it was well balanced, it has to be assumed with such a small sample size of college and high school students that the room for error could be sizable. To increase the effectiveness, the scope would have to be broadened considerably. As far as the specific questions go, I think some further explanation for clarity would have helped. Although I don’t think anyone was confused with the survey, it is possible. Lastly, I think I may have wanted to take out the, ‘need more information,’ option. I believe it may have just functioned as an option for those who have weak opinions, however if that was the case it would have been preferred if they just chose yes or no.
Science marches forward, however, and although there were some minor issues, it seems indisputable that the results suggest a strong ethical and moral contention in students. But progress continues, and with the expansion of CRISPR and gene therapy, genetic engineering is going to move forward one way or another. Where this will intersect with the opinions of today’s young adults; the science community’s future, is hard to surmise from this alone. Further research would have to be done on a broader scale in order to be truly considered a completely accurate sample of college students. The only concrete conclusion that can be made here is that genetic engineering has a long way to go before it becomes normalized, if it ever does.