hi So one of my writting projects i am shelving for now (while i develop my skills via shorts instead for a quicker turn around in critique and improvement) is a sci fi novel which requires some solid understanding of gene therapy, genetic engineering etc. I am from a computer science background so the biology side of things is difficult. Where do you start and how accurate do you have to get with these things so as to not loose knowledgeable readers through pseudo scientific jargon and ideas that have no bairing on reality???
Start with the internet. Regular Google, and Google Scholar. You can decide for yourself how much detail you want to get into with the science, but whatever details you do get into should be correct, and to the extent they go beyond current tech, they should be extrapolations from what is correct now, or else explained as to why they aren't.
It's a good resource. You'll end up behind a pay wall sometimes, but often even then you can find the article free with the author's name and title - sometimes on the author's own web site.
