Genes and genetic engineering.
GENES AND GENETIC ENGINEERING
Genetic engineering is the deliberate transfer of single genes between organisms. Genes are the stretches of DNA -- or occasionally RNA -- that carry information about the structure and function of all organisms.
Genetic engineering is changing medicine, agriculture and even the legal system. Genetic engineering is very clever and could be very useful. But it all seems to be happening much too fast and nobody knows what the effects of making and eating such living things will be. Many kinds of life could be damaged. Genetic engineering can be applied to organisms such as bacteria, animals and plants.
Farmers began primitive genetic engineering at the dawn of agriculture, when they kept seeds from their best plants, gradually improving the quality of successive generations. That practice accelerated early in the 20th century, when scientific plant breeders started using the principles of genetics to make plants with disease resistance, better structure or appearance, and higher yields.
Genetic engineers isolate the gene they want and insert it into a cell of the plant they want to transform. Then they grow that cell into a mature plant. If everything goes right, the offspring of that plant will contain the new gene. With correct breeding, so will all successive generations.
Simply by planting genetically engineered seeds, farmers are helping change the equation between weeds, insects, toxic agricultural chemicals and yields. Plants can be protected from all these things and an unlimited amount of crops can be produced. Fifteen years after the first gene was deliberately inserted into a plant, and just one year after their large-scale introduction, genetically engineered seeds are germinating on 65 million acres of prime farmland worldwide. As farmers are eagerly planting the new seeds, proponents say agricultural genetic engineering is an ecologically sound way to defend...
More Genetics & Genome Projects
essays:
Genetic Engineering
... insulin and when the bacteria reproduced, they reproduced the human gene as well. Next, genetic engineering will make it possible to create vital organs for transplants. A major medical difficulty today is the lack of organ donors ...
Genetic Engineering.
... altering of genes. It did not take long for many biologists to realize that recombinant DNA technology had enormous scientific and commercial possibilities (Edelson 47). Genetic engineering is being used to create plants that are resistant to ...
Genetic Engineering
... way genetic engineering is used is in agriculture. Agriculture and genetics have been partners throughout scientific history to control plants' reproduction and create new products. Today genetic engineering of plants and animals has ...
lots of general information on Genetically Modified Organisms.
... in animals, plants and micro-organisms. A specific combination provides the information that gives rise to the characteristics, structure and functions of particular species (and individuals). Genetic material ...
The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World By.
... coming century. In just the past 18 months, genetically engineered corn, soy and cotton have been planted over millions of acres of U.S. farmland. Genetically engineered insects, fish and domesticated animals have also been introduced. Virtually every genetically engineered organism ...
Genetic Engineering, history and future
... tissues, genetic engineering has also proven extremely helpful in the alteration of bacterial genes. 'Transforming bacterial cells is easier than transforming the cells of complex organisms' (Stableford 34). Two reasons are evident for this ease of manipulation: DNA enters, and functions ...
Gene Therapy
... future generations to prevent transmission of genetic diseases, (3) whether reasonable moral lines can be drawn now and in the future between the use of genetic knowledge to treat or prevent genetic diseases and uses for enhancement genetic engineering, and (4 ...
Genetic Engineering
... science of genetic engineering is slowly mastering its techniques. Regeneration in mammals is essentially a kind of controlled cancer called ablastema. The cancer is deliberately formed at the regeneration site and then converted into a structure of functional tissues ...