KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES OF STUDENTS ABOUT GENE THERAPY – PRELIMINARY STUDY

The progress of biological sciences and medicinal technology has been promising several applications of this technology from treatment of genetic diseases to gene analysis and examinations. Although gene therapy has been still in the developing phase, it has also raised several concerns to which answers are not easily available. With increasing feasibility of applications on one side and controversy on the other the teaching of these issues has been anything but easy. Therefore our major interest was to establish what kind of knowledge, values and opinions about gene therapy possessed upper-secondary education students and biology students from University of Maribor, Slovenia, and what kind of differences existed between this two groups. Respondents showed great interest about this topic. Older biology students were more knowledgeable and showed more profound views on genetic therapy in comparison with younger secondary education students. Our results indicate the importance of education about this topic and the time when it has to be introduced into the undergraduate curriculum.