Developing a Research Question

Now that Project 1 is complete, it is time to look to Project 2. In the first Project 2 post, I will explore possible research questions in my field, biomedical engineering. Since I am planning to go into the medical field and I find the medical field more fascinating, some of my possible research questions pertain more to the medical field than biomedical engineering.

"Gattaca" (n.d.) via Wikipedia. Public domain.

Why is genetic engineering unethical?

This is interesting to me because genetic engineering has clear benefits and the only disadvantage is some think it's not right to modify a person before they are born: it's viewed as playing God. I don't know a lot on this topic nor do I have a solidified stance on it. That makes it interesting to hear the arguments as someone without a strong bias and make my own decisions about the facts.

How can we make animal testing more humane for the animals while maintaining advancement?

I'm not crazy about animal rights like I know some people are. I did a debate against a group in high school about animal testing and some of the numbers of animal deaths due to testing were astonishing. I'm interested to find these numbers for myself and compare them to how many human lives are saved by the drugs produced. I do not have a moderate stance on this subject and I am interested to see if one side appears better than the other after I do my own research on it.

Where should the ethics line be drawn in medical research?

This question is similar to my first. It is also similar to the cloning controversy, which I focused on in Project 1. This question may be too broad for this project but it seems to be the root of the controversy of cloning and genetic engineering, and possibly many more issues in my field. I am interested in taking on the problems at the source rather than deal with them on a case to case basis, although I may find that these issues can only be dealt with on a case to case basis.