Portal:Genetic engineering

Welcome to the Wikiversity Department of Genetic Engineering.

The Department of Genetic Engineering is a Wikiversity content development project where participants create, organize and develop learning resources for genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering, genetic modification (GM) and gene splicing are terms for the process of manipulating genes, usually outside the organism's natural reproductive process.

It involves the isolation, manipulation and reintroduction of DNA into cells or model organisms, usually to express a protein. The aim is to introduce new characteristics or attributes physiologically or physically, such as making a crop resistant to a herbicide, introducing a novel trait, or producing a new protein or enzyme, along with altering the organism to produce more of certain traits. Examples can include the production of human insulin through the use of modified bacteria, the production of erythropoietin in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, and the production of new types of experimental mice such as the OncoMouse (cancer mouse) for research, through genetic redesign.

Since a protein is specified by a segment of DNA called a gene, future versions of that protein can be modified by changing the gene's underlying DNA. One way to do this is to isolate the piece of DNA containing the gene, precisely cut the gene out, and then reintroduce (splice) the gene into a different DNA segment. Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their isolation of restriction endonucleases, which are able to cut DNA at specific sites. Together with ligase, which can join fragments of DNA together, restriction enzymes formed the initial basis of recombinant DNA technology.

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Department news

 * 6 January 2007 - Department founded!

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See: Learning Projects and the Learning model.

Learning materials and learning projects are located in the main Wikiversity namespace. Simply make a link to the name of the learning project (learning projects are independent pages in the main namespace) and start writing! We suggest the use of the learning project template (use "subst:Learning project boilerplate" on the new page, inside the double curved brackets – ).

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Related news

 * May 16, 2007 - Hair follicles re-awakened in mice ...

Wikipedia

 * Genetic engineering