wat r 'll the subjects included in genetic engineering?

Question

wat is it all 'bout ?wat does a genetic engineer do?

Answer 1

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.

Applications --- :

The first Genetically Engineered drug was human insulin approved by the USA's FDA in 1982. Another early application of genetic engineering was to create human growth hormone as replacement for a drug that was previously extracted from human cadavers. In 1986 the FDA approved the first genetically engineered vaccine for humans, for hepatitis B. Since these early uses of the technology in medicine, the use of GE has expanded to supply many drugs and vaccines.

One of the best known applications of genetic engineering is that you can probilize the outcome of offspring. There are potentially momentous biotechnological applications of GM, for example oral vaccines produced naturally in fruit, at very low cost.

A radical ambition of some groups is human enhancement via genetics, eventually by molecular engineering. See also: transhumanism.

Genetic engineering and research
Although there has been a tremendous revolution in the biological sciences in the past twenty years, there is still a great deal that remains to be discovered. The completion of the sequencing of the human genome, as well as the genomes of most agriculturally and scientifically important plants and animals, has increased the possibilities of genetic research immeasurably. Expedient and inexpensive access to comprehensive genetic data has become a reality with billions of sequenced nucleotides already online and annotated. Now that the rapid sequencing of arbitrarily large genomes has become a simple, if not trivial affair, a much greater challenge will be elucidating function of the extraordinarily complex web of interacting proteins, dubbed the proteome, that constitutes and powers all living things. Genetic engineering has become the gold standard in protein research, and major research progress has been made using a wide variety of techniques, including:

Loss of function, such as in a knockout experiment, in which an organism is engineered to lack the activity of one or more genes. This allows the experimenter to analyze the defects caused by this mutation, and can be considerably useful in unearthing the function of a gene. It is used especially frequently in developmental biology. A knockout experiment involves the creation and manipulation of a DNA construct in vitro, which, in a simple knockout, consists of a copy of the desired gene which has been slightly altered such as to cripple its function. The construct is then taken up by embryonic stem cells, where the engineered copy of the gene replaces the organism's own gene. These stem cells are injected into blastocysts, which are implanted into surrogate mothers. Another method, useful in organisms such as Drosophila (fruit fly), is to induce mutations in a large population and then screen the progeny for the desired mutation. A similar process can be used in both plants and prokaryotes.

Gain of function experiments, the logical counterpart of knockouts. These are sometimes performed in conjunction with knockout experiments to more finely establish the function of the desired gene. The process is much the same as that in knockout engineering, except that the construct is designed to increase the function of the gene, usually by providing extra copies of the gene or inducing synthesis of the protein more frequently.

'Tracking' experiments, which seek to gain information about the localization and interaction of the desired protein. One way to do this is to replace the wild-type gene with a 'fusion' gene, which is a juxtaposition of the wild-type gene with a reporting element such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) that will allow easy visualization of the products of the genetic modification. While this is a useful technique, the manipulation can destroy the function of the gene, creating secondary effects and possibly calling into question the results of the experiment. More sophisticated techniques are now in development that can track protein products without mitigating their function, such as the addition of small sequences which will serve as binding motifs to monoclonal antibodies.

Novel organisms --- :

Nature can produce organisms with new gene combinations through sexual reproduction. A brown cow bred to a yellow cow may produce a calf of a completely new color. But reproductive mechanisms limit the number of new combinations. Cows must breed with other cows (or very near relatives). A breeder who wants a purple cow would be able to breed toward one only if the necessary purple genes were available somewhere in a cow or a near relative to cows. A genetic engineer has no such restriction. If purple genes are available anywhere in nature—in a sea urchin or an iris—those genes could be used in attempts to produce purple cows. This unprecedented ability to shuffle genes means that genetic engineers can concoct gene combinations that would never be found in nature.

New risks --- :

Contrary to the arguments made by some proponents, genetic engineering is far from being a minor extension of existing breeding technologies. It is a radically new technology for altering the traits of living organisms by inserting genetic material that has been manipulated by artificial means. Because of this, genetic engineering may one day encompass the routine addition of novel genes that have been wholly synthesized in the laboratory.

Novel organisms bring novel risks, however, as well as the desired benefits. These risks must be carefully assessed to make sure that all effects—both desired and unintended—are benign. UCS advocates caution, examination of alternatives, and careful case-by-case evaluation of genetic enginering applications within an overall framework that seeks to move agricultural systems of food production toward sustainability.

Alternatives to Genetic Engineering --- :

A key part of any benefits discussion involves alternatives. Are there better ways to do what is desired? Like benefits, discussions of alternatives can be complicated and elusive, and much depends on the goals envisioned. When the goals include reducing dependence on pesticides and herbicides, there are clearly alternatives to many biotechnology products. Many of these alternatives are not other products, but instead the systems and methods of sustainable agriculture.
A good example is crop rotation, which keeps pests under control elegantly by depriving them of the continuous food supply they need to build up large populations. Crop rotation has many advantages. It controls a broad variety of pests rather than just one or two. It does not select for resistance genes, as do chemical toxins or genetically engineered crops. And it does not result in ongoing pollution of air or water. As a pest-control strategy, crop rotation is far preferable to both chemical insecticides and genetically engineered crops. Unfortunately, because it involves processes and not products, there is no industrial constituency to develop and support crop rotation as there is for the products of biotechnology.

Conversion from industrial agriculture to sustainable systems that depend less on chemicals would eliminate the need for many of the currently projected products of biotechnology. This is not to say that there is no place for genetically engineered crops in sustainable systems; there may well be. But before such crops are introduced to sustainable agriculture systems, those systems must be more fully developed than they currently are. The specific products engineered for sustainable agriculture would be different from those that are being developed to fit into industrial agricultural systems and their development should probably await the wider adoption of such systems.

Agricultural biotechnology, as it is currently developing, is not particularly fruitful in the quest for a sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture solves problems by understanding and adjusting the elements of the system to achieve its goals rather than by developing new products that must be purchased. Agricultural biotechnology, by contrast, is basically an input industry, developing products, often expensive products, priced to cover the costs of research and development. In sustainable agriculture, new products are less important than new knowledge and new ways of manipulating agricultural ecosystems.

Genetically Engineered Crops Use More Pesticide --- :

When genetically engineered (GE) crops first came on the market in 1996, proponents claimed that they would need far less pesticide than conventional crops. Most genetically engineered crops are modified to either tolerate the herbicide glyphosate (HT crops) or to produce their own insecticide (Bt crops), so in theory, fewer applications of pesticide on GE fields would be sufficient to take care of pests. For the first three years of use, this was true. However, a new report by agricultural economist Dr. Charles Benbrook, Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in the United States, shows that farmers now use more pesticide on the top three GE crops—corn, soybeans, and cotton—than on conventional varieties.

From 1996 to 1999, pest management in GE corn, soybeans, and cotton was relatively simple and effective, and engineered crops needed less pesticide than conventional varieties. By 2000, however, a contrary trend appeared—an increase in herbicide use on HT varieties over conventional varieties. That trend has continued and even accelerated in the last four years. Now, nine years of data on GE crops and pesticide use indicate that a total of 122 million more pounds of pesticides have been used on engineered crops than on conventional ones over that period.

According to the report, the difference in pesticide use is due to a sharp increase in herbicides applied to glyphosate-tolerant crops. This has occurred due to the emergence of new weeds—glyphosate-tolerant ones. As weed scientists have predicted for years, the widespread use of glyphosate on millions of acres of GE crops has selected for weeds that are tolerant to the chemical. These new weeds are subdued only by multiple applications of glyphosate and/or other herbicides.

Price drops for glyphosate and other herbicides and vigorous marketing by herbicide manufacturers have led farmers to apply more and more herbicides to deal with the new weed problem. Between 1996 and 2004, farmers used 138 million more pounds of herbicides on GE varieties than on conventional ones.

This huge increase was offset a bit by a welcome decline in insecticide use on Bt varieties. Between 1996 and 2004, 15.6 million fewer pounds of insecticide were used on Bt crops compared with conventional varieties.

The report predicts that the intensity of herbicide use on GE crops is not likely to subside in the near future because of the popularity of HT varieties, the limited supply of seeds for non-HT varieties, and increasingly aggressive herbicide company campaigns targeting farmers growing HT crops.

There are varying salaries to genetic engineering. For instance; most students who graduate with a Bachelor in a scientific and engineering field usually start off in most entry-level positions making between $34,500 and $43,000 a year. While most often those who major in this field must indeed plan on getting an associate's to start if they haven't already studied the proper subjects in high school. Most careers in genetic engineering encompass degrees that of Master's and Doctorate in a double major in engineering and physical science. Some even major in Pre Med. The salaries offered to higher ranking degrees are substantial and very competative, entry salary for master's graduates begin at $50,000 and range all the way up to $80,000 a year, while the most qualified positions go to those who have Ph.D's. Starting pay for those graduates is $75,500 and for the most advanced in the field are sometimes offered upwards of $90,000 to $150,000 a year. However, note, this also depends on your area in which you reside in. Those in California and New York are bound to make more given the location they live in.

Many students who major in this field usually take one subject, such as bioengineering, engineering, physics and the like. Then, they use this towards a Bachelor's Degree, get a job and eventually go bacl to gain their Master's in another major to further their career. Only a few are lucky enough to double major.

Others use their degrees in universities as professors and others still use their degrees in research institutions and facilities of the like.

Good luck in your research.