Shari Della Penna
  • Home
  • About
    • My family
    • My work
    • My favorites
    • FAQ's
  • Contact
  • Blog

"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
   Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
   ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
                         Author, Advocate, Advisor

It’s All About Potential

12/4/2018

0 Comments

 
    “We want Julius to grow up to as extraordinary as you. So we must tell him constantly how beautiful he is and how much we love him.”
                                      . . .     
    “We want Julius to grow up to be as clever as you. So we must sing to him his numbers and letters whenever possible.”
                                              from Julius, Baby of the World    
                                      written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes
                                                       Greenwillow Books, 1990

    Back when I was having my babies, the world seemed simpler. Most tiny clothes for newborns were yellow or green. Why would you outfit a nursery in pink only to discover nine months later, that it should have been done up in blue? Now it’s okay for boys to have pink and girls to have blue, sorta. Anyway we’re moving in that direction, I think. But all those years ago, it was pretty chancy to buy blue or pink before the baby arrived.

    Then sonograms became routine and took the guesswork out of many aspects of pregnancy. But really, maybe we’ll get back to how our society may (or may not) have discovered a sliding gender scale another time. 
    Right now, I’m trying to sort out my feelings about He Jiankui’s  bombshell announcement that he successfully helped make the first gene-edited baby.
    I learned about DNA in high school. Francis Crick and James Watson based their discovery of the double helix on work done by Rosalind Franklin, one of their colleagues whose x-ray images revealed the shape of the helix. And in 1962, Crick and Watson along with Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how DNA transfers information from cell to cell. And what of Rosalind Franklin and her work? Well, she was a woman in a man’s world in the 1950s.
    In 1990, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy joined with the international community to identify the estimated 30,000 genes in human DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and to figure out the sequences of their chemical bases. They wanted a map of the complete set of DNA in the human body. This concerted, public effort was the Human Genome Project. 
    In April 2003, researchers celebrated their successful completion, under budget and more than two years ahead of schedule. According to the NIH, the information is used to treat, cure, or even prevent diseases and afflictions. Genes for as many as 1,800 diseases have been discovered so far. https://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=45 
    Last Tuesday, the day before it began, (11/27/18) He Jiankui revealed the results of his experiment to the organizers of The Second  International Summit  on Human Genome Editing.    
    One girl in a set of twin girls, He said, were born last month with the ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus. To me, just identifying, locating, and working on something so impossibly small and delicate is beyond amazing.  

    The announcement from China of a genetically modified baby rocked, shocked, stupefied, stunned, and astonished the medical and scientific communities.  
    The purpose of the Summit was to discuss everything from the physiological and scientific workings of genes to the ethics and morality of what it means to be human. 

    While on the surface He's experiment might seem like a good idea, a step forward in the eradication of a deadly disease, what is still unknown is what happens to that gene and the ones communicating with it during its lifespan? No one knows. For now, I’m content to take control of my health through exercise and nutritious food (when I can identify it as such). And trust the scientists will figure out the ethics. I’m pretty ecstatic that they all were mostly horrified. 
    The first time I saw each of my baby daughters, I looked into their eyes for a long moment. I wished them happiness, good health, and the determination to reach their potentials. I also did not want them to be fat, but that wish started way before they were born.
    Just as Julius’s parents nurture him to help him reach his best self, Mother Nature is also at work in determining how we all turn out. I know that. AIDS is a deadly disease, I know that, too. In a contest of wills, though, human against Nature, it is usually (maybe even necessarily) Mother Nature that wins. 
                                                    -—stay curious! (and lean in)


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

         I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly