Design Instinct

Have you ever wished of having longer fingers to play piano well, wider chest to swim faster, or sensitive tongue to taste better wine better? I wish I had milky skin instead of my dark skin that I got from my mother. When my relatives look at my childhood picture and my mother’s childhood picture, they can’t tell who is who because of our dark skin. My relatives sometimes get confused a picture of me in my childhood with a picture of my mother in her childhood, because of our dark skin. I also have my father’s flat feet that my grandfather has, and my grand-grandfather had. If I walk for a long timetoo long, my feet become swollen and my knees start acheaching. Who I am as a biological human beingBiological characteristics of me cannot be determined by me myself or even my parent who made gave birth to me. Whether I like it or not, I cannot hide from the fact that I am comprised of a unique combination of my ancestors' genes.

When people a person dies, theythe person leave something behind thema legacy for their his or her spouses and children offspring to cherish and remember the one who is gonehimself. It may be documents about one’s his honor and achievements, treasures and valuable assets gathered insaved over one’s his life time, simply precious memories about himselfof one’s being, or physical characteristics, like I mentioned in the beginning, known as biological inheritance;: heredity. Based on what has been passed down to our generation from parental generation, itThis biological inheritance sometimes becomes strength and advantage for one’s survival to live a life or weakness and disadvantage to confront.

Gregor Johann Mandel is the father of the genetics. He was an Augustinian monk and scientist who was eagerly interested in the nature of inheritance in plants. With some knowledge in biology, he first experimentedHe began his experiment with ornamental plants to find out whether plants are designed to have certain characteristics influenced by environments or parents. This little experiment with ornamental plants proved that the plants’ offspring gain obtains certain traits of from its parents. The Pplants’ offspring is not affected or influenced by its environment. This simple experiment originated the idea of heredity.

With a vague idea of about heredity, Mandel went into onto the a more developed investigation on heredity, for this time, with pea plants. From 7 years of breeding thousands of pea plants, recording the connection of traits between offsprings and parents, and statically analyzing the results of the data, Mendel cracked the code ofor the basic laws of heredity in 1863. The fundamental facts of the Mendel’s law isis that when from the two units of heredity (now called to be genes), the parental generation transmits only the dominant half of its hereditary factors to each offspring. These factors that decide heredityThe genes do not combine but passed down as a discrete factor. Offspring generation will have many different combinations of heredity factors from their parental generation.

Another modern scientific attempt to understand inherited traits through human generations is Human Genome Project (HGP), which started in 1990. Scientists identified about 25,000 genes in human DNA and determined the sequence of chemical base pairs of human DNA. The entire map of 3 billion DNA sequence explains how genes control the functions of the human body. With this information, scientists hoped to be able to find the genes that cause particular illnesses. Even furthermoreFurthermore, scientists saw this map not only as a method to diagnosis diagnose the certain illness, but also a new way of treatmentsto treat for genetic illness.

As a quick experiment to find out one’s genetic sequence, scientists use DNA microarray, also known as DNA chip. Thousands of probes are laid on the flat solid DNA chip, usually made out of silicon or glass. Samples of one’s DNA can be easily compared to the synthetic DNA target embedded on the chip. This is a popular method to diagnosis diagnose the development of any mutation in a gene. Up to 260,000 genes can be investigated on a single DNA chip. Because of its simple and fast process, genetics geneticists and scientists predict that average patients will become accessible to theis DNA chips at their family physicians’ offices in the near future.

Scientists have tried to identify exact genes that cause particular diseases and seek have sought to apply genetic treatments on these disorders. The field of genetic medicine, which dealing deals with the process of screening one’s DNA, diagnosis diagnoses any illness with the information of one’s the DNA, and prevents or treatsment of hereditary condition, has become more improved and investigated with the development of computer-based technology. In the future, genetic treatment on defects and illnesses will be applied even before the one’s birth, and doctors will be able to cure newborn babies who have hereditary disorders, such as, cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, sickle-call anemia, phenylketonuria, Down syndrome, and cancer.

The treatment involved with direct manipulation of one’s genes is called genetic engineering. This is a direct application of the study of genetic medicine. Genetic engineering uses the technique of molecular cloning which produces the ideal protein by changing the DNA sequence in the gene. At this point, idea of genetically modified organisms is limited to plants and very few animals. Scientists foresee that, in the future, the manipulation of gene, or “designer gene”, will be available to human with advanced technology and a vast amount research. Critics argue that this the modification of gene will bring controversial issuescontroversy that modifying genes is wrong because it is doingintrudes the work of God, ruins ecosystems, and might has possibilitymay even to lead to the society in which that genetic perfection is the ultimate ideal.

If, in the future, we will reach the point of redesigning defective gene to an ideal state, does it mean that even human beings can become a design subject matter of design? Going back to the start of this essay, wWill we the society reach the point where I can be likeeasily say, “I’d like to do want to redesign my flat feet?”, instead of buying a well-designed pair of sneakers?. Is design instinct embedded deeply in all human being? If the heredity of one’s being can be genetically designed, is it because our design instincts tells us that everything that has problem imperfection needs to be solved and fixed?

Industrial designers say design is a problem solving process. Industrial designers design products, system, service and such, etc to benefit human beings and theirits living environment. Then will this idea of designing human genes lead industrial designers to a new way to approach to make one’s life better? Or is this idea too daring to talk aboutbe discussed because it treats human beings as artifacts and disregard the dignity of man? Then what makes boundaries to industrial designers to be involved? IndustrailIs industrial design is limited only to satisfy human being's secondary needs? What will be the role of the industrial designers in the future?