Life recombined
The need for a new bioethics
Seeing the invisible: van Leeuwenhoek’s first glimpses of the microbial world
Can you transplant a head to another body?
The first scientists to splice DNA faced a daunting question: ‘Should we?’
Recombinant DNA – or DNA created by artificially splicing the genes of more than one organism – has transformed modern medicine, helping to launch the biotechnology industry and opening up paths to countless new treatments. However, as this short documentary from the Science Communication Lab chronicles, it was a revolution born in controversy. Early experimentation prompted alarm both within the scientific community and among the broader public, with fears about what tinkering with the building blocks of life might unleash drawing comparisons to the advent of the nuclear bomb.
The........
