User:Atcovi/Science/Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

Selective Breeding
Selective Breeding: Choosing organisms with specific traits and breeding them to produce the desired characteristics.
 * Types
 * Inbreeding - Develops pure lines of animals.
 * Hybrids - Crossing specific organisms to produce children with specific traits.
 * Examples
 * Plants and Foods - Wheat, Corn, Rice
 * Purebed lines of animals - Horses, Dogs
 * Test Cross
 * Cross of an individual of unknown genotype with an individual of known genotype.
 * Helps breeders determine which plants or animals have the greatest chance of passing on the desired trait.

Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

 * Production of organisms with new genetic traits. Involves cutting (cleaving) DNA from one organism and inserting it into a host (same/different) organism. The cutting and recombining of DNA are known as recombinant DNA.

Transformation & Recombinant DNA

 * Transformation - The uptake and incorporation of DNA by bacteria.
 * Proteins produced through transfromation are insulin and human growth hormone.

Transgenic Organisms

 * Organisms that contain functional recombinant DNA from a different organism.
 * Examples: Tobacco plant with firefly DNA, sheep with human DNA that codes for human cllotting proteins.

Cloning

 * Clone: Genetically identical copies
 * Gene cloning: Cloning of specific DNA molecules
 * Examples: Dolly the sheep (1997) and several animals like goats, mice, cattle and pigs.
 * Still a difficult and inefficient process.

Where are Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering used?

 * 1) Medicine
 * 2) Agriculture
 * 3) DNA sequencing
 * 4) Diagnosis of genetic disorders
 * 5) Gene therapy
 * 6) Cloning
 * 7) Taxonomy
 * 8) Forensic science

Ethical Issues
Government funded researchers are not allowed to clone humans. Private researchers (do not receive any government funding) may conduct research of their choosing.