Hello,

If I am not mistaken, you are talking about Genome Biology paper from a Cambridge University group, that was highly discussed and talked about Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) and said "WE, humans" have acquired many genes from other organisms.

Some of our essential genes, do fall in this category, like ABO genes for blood group, which was also acquired from others. So, can you imagine the impact of "removing" these genes! This happened millions of years ago, many of the acquired genes have been adapted to perform some function for us, and thus are more "us" than "foreign". So, removing them, hmmm!

"Permitted", or "Forbidden" are very far-off issues, first question is: is it even possible to do, even with all the techincal advances we have. And the answer is "No", it is not even possible, because, these sequences, as you call "foreign DNA" are not present at one place, they are interspersed within the genome. Yes, with some gene editing tools, like Crisper, you can do manipulations at some level, but not at such intricate level and that too in one cell. 

When the sceintists will manage to do micro-manipulation of DNA at this level, then the sci-fi imagination of having a perfect human cell, without any disease-causing allele, will be possible and the perfect human beings can be raised. But we do know we are far from such understanding. May be that will be an age of human clones! 

Regards,

SB

Simran, thank you for the clarifications. It is easy to misunderstand some of the details of the genome when the popular press - and even quality media such as the NY Times, The Guardian etc. will carry articles stating that "we have x percent mouse and y percent squirrel" without explanation, which does make it sound as though these "foreign" bits can be removed!

Which brings me to another question: do you think that there is a disconnect in the way in which scientific information is disseminated?

I would say it is actually hard to explain scientific intricacies in layman terms. Thats why not many scientists are good story-tellers. And from my experience and observations, the more rationalist a scientific mind, more difficult it is for him/her to be non-scientific in their explanantions. Because they do not find the right term, the right word, the right sentence to explain the logic and rationale behind the science.

But some people do manage to do it beautifully and there are courses/workshops to make scientific discoveries understandable to non-scientific people. But it is very difficult at times. I myself, cannot explain to my mother, what am I doing. I am very vague, almost to the point, thta it does not make any sense scientifically, but thats how it is. We do try and like everything else in life, do not always succeed.