why would you want to change an organism's dna?

Question

question i have to answer in 8th grade biology.

Answer 1

for fun

Answer 2

1. Medical Reasons: This is probably the most extreme end of genetic modification. Basically if a gene is faulty (for example the gene for making Insulin in diabetes), you would aim to replace the faulty gene with one that works (or correct the existing one). Much more complicated and not a realistic possibility for many years.

2. Produce proteins: If you want to make a protein, rather than try and make it yourself in a test tube, you can change the DNA of a simple organism (e.g. bacteria . . . E. coli is most common) so it can have the gene to make the protein you want. Again this is used to help diabetics, pure insulin can be produced by bacteria whose DNA has been modified to include the human insulin gene.

3. Make something better: This is already widely done in farming, known as GM (Genetically Modified) Crops. Genes are inserted into the DNA of plants to make them grow better, more resistant to pests, resistant to weed killers (so that when you spray a field it only kills the weeds) to name a few examples. Before modern genetic techniques, this was done for thousands of years just much slower, you pick out the crops who grow fastest and breed them with crops that are resistant to a certain pest and eventually aim to have a strain that does both.

Answer 3

That's a vague question...

Scientists change an organism's DNA to determine the function of the protein that the DNA encodes. They can also insert DNA (such as Green fluorescent protein) into organisms as a marker for certain cell types, organelles, etc.

You could change a human's DNA through gene therapy, but that usually is done to provide DNA that encodes a functional protein when the human's DNA is non-functional.

Answer 4

Thats called Playing God....