Research is being used around the world to distill down what exactly brings about different diseases in humans and other organisms - from ones that are communicable to ones that are genetic.

Genetic Therapy and Cancer

Society has already taken huge steps in the research and employment of gene therapy. In 1985, Dr. W. French Anderson and Dr. Michael Blaese found that the adenosine deaminase deficiency disease could be corrected by using tissue culture. Such a disease can leave its victims defenseless against harmful infections. In 1989, Dr. W. French Anderson and Dr. Michael Blaese worked with Dr. Steven Rosenberg to test the safety and effectiveness of the gene therapy process in cancer patients. Using the deadly malignant melanoma cancer, the doctors grew tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL cells). They then devised a virus to place a DNA marker into the TIL cells, which later helped researchers determine which TIL cells worked best for cancer treatment, and that the engineered virus was safe to use in humans. With the previous experiment, in 1990, a four-year-old girl became the first gene therapy patient for her ADA deficiency disease in the National Institute of Health's Clinical Center. Doctors decided to take white blood cell samples from the girl and then insert the normal genes that coded for adenosine deaminase into these white blood cells. The corrected cells were then re-injected into the young girl. In 1993, researchers used this gene therapy to treat newborn babies with ADA deficiency. The normal ADA genes were delivered to the immature blood cells of the babies. The original four-year-old ADA patient now attends school and is leading a normal life. The newborn patients have shown steady increases in ADA in their immune cells following a single gene therapy treatment. But although the promise of gene therapy is great, many scientific and moral obstacles remain before it becomes a practical form of therapy.

Glowing Fish

Glowing fish are created to benefit the health of humans. The fish that glow when the water in which it is inhabiting is polluted. Since the fish collect pollutants, it would be toxic for a human to eat the zebra fish. However, with this new technology, the fish will glow when in polluted water (even if there is a very small amount of pollution), and act as a warning to mammals and birds.