Different Techniques to Alter Genes

1. Different Techniques to Alter Genes

2. Genetic Engineering • Since traits come from the genes in a cell, putting a new piece of DNA into a cell can produce a new trait. • Ex: Crop plants can be given a gene from an Arctic fish, so they produce an antifreeze protein in their leaves to prevent frost damage • Ex:Other genes that can be put into crops include a natural insecticide from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. The insecticide kills insects that eat the plants, but is harmless to people

3. Genetic Engineering Cont... • Ex: Gene therapy for people with genetic disorders • Gene therapy works by trying to replace the allele that causes the disease with an allele that will work properly. • Determine which allele is the defective one and replace it with a copy • This copy is passed down through the generations

4. Selective Breeding • Organisms with so-called desirable characteristics are mated together • Ex: Roses are bred together to produce larger flowers • Ex: Cattle, Salmon, Tilapia • Ex: Oysters, Roosters

5. Vegetative Propagation • Producing a new plant from existing plant structures, a good example of this would be genetically modified food. • Ex: eyes from a potato • These modified crops would also reduce the usage of chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides, and therefore decrease the severity and frequency of the damages produced by these chemical pollution. • The genetic engineering of agricultural crops can increase the growth rates and resistance to different diseases caused by pathogens and parasites.

6. Transformation • Altering genes in a cell by adding foreign DNA • A good example is bacteria.

7. Cloning • Creating a copy of DNA from an organism and producing a genetically identical organism. • For embryos: The goal is not to create cloned human beings but rather to harvest stem cells that can be used to study human development and to potentially treat disease. • 2006 – Dolly the sheep – lived 6 years

8. Cloning cont.. • A fun fact: In the United States, the human consumption of meat and other products from cloned animals was approved by the FDA on December 28, 2006, with no special labeling required. Cloned beef and other products have since been regularly consumed in the US without distinction. 

9. What has been cloned over the years: • Tadpole: (1952) • Carp: (1963) • Mice: (1986) • Sheep: (1996)  • Rhesus Monkey: Tetra (January 2000) • Cattle: Alpha and Beta (males, 2001) • Cat: (2001), Little Nicky, 2004, • Dog: Snuppy, 2005 • Rat: Ralph, (2003) • Mule: 2003 • Horse: Prometea 2003 • Water Buffalo: 2009 • Pyrenean Ibex (2009) was the first extinct animal (extinct 2000) to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for seven minutes before dying of lung defects • Camel: (2009) the first cloned camel.

10. Human Cloning • Ethical concerns have been raised by the future possibility of harvesting organs from clones. • The first hybrid human clone was created in November 1998, by Advanced Cell Technologies. It was created from a man's leg cell, and a cow's egg whose DNA was removed. It was destroyed after 12 days. Since a normal embryo implants at 14 days, Dr Robert Lanza, ACT's director of tissue engineering, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the embryo could not be seen as a person before 14 days. While making an embryo, which may have resulted in a complete human had it been allowed to come to term. • So we will never know….