New News Biology #63

Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering is when we take a plant with desirable characteristics. Then we take the gene corresponding to that desirable characteristic and transfer it to another plant.

This helps the organism develop the same trait, effectively modifying the organism’s genome by adding this new gene to it. The organism is known as genetically modified or GM.

It is not limited to organisms of the same species.

It can be used to make bacteria produce insulin to treat diabetes, make crops have higher quality, etc.

There is also a use case, gene therapy, where a person is given a healthy version of a gene in order to treat an inherited disorder. However, it is difficult to make this work, as you have to transfer the new gene to every cell in the body, which is a hard task. So the better solution is to transfer the gene at an early stage of development, as they develop, the gene is passed on to all other cells.

Genetically modified crops:

Pros:

Easily make crops with desirable characteristics - more food for less money

Special nutrients in crops - beta carotene protects people from going blind

Cons:

Don’t know how these crops might affect our health

May escape the farm and out-compete wild plants, changing the ecosystem, though this is unlikely, as these genetically modified crops are designed to survive on the farm.

How to actually transfer the gene:

Find the gene - then isolate it into a vector.

then find the organism that we want to have the gene - insert the vector

The organism accepts the vector and starts producing the necessary traits.