Can a person's gene's be manipulated to take on a animal's traits?

Question

By this I'm asking since we are moving foward with cross breeding different types of creatures and looking toward new areas of experiments. Is it possible to take the genetic material from a animal..and add it to a human to give them some of the ablitys that a animal has.

Answer 1

Yes and no.

While it is possible, even now, to do some modest kinds of genetic engineering with some success, I suspect that what you are thinking of runs up against a much more significant limitation.

And that is this: There is NO gene for a horn. Or for gills. Or for almost everything that we think of as a 'trait'.

DNA makes PROTEINS. And that's it! If you want to give someone a characteristic that an animal or a plant has (being able to photosynthesize could be nice, too!), you're probably not talking about ONE gene, but probably hundreds, if not thousands. All kinds of things are wickedly interrelated, too, and in ways that are VERY difficult to predict.

Before we can reasonably attempt any kind of transgenomics, we're going to have to move PAST the Human Genome Project to the Human Proteome Project. Now that we have a record of all the different DNA, we need to know all the different proteins that DNA makes. Which is a much more difficult task because many genes can make more than one protein, and some contribute subunits to whole groups of protein complexes.

What we'll see first is a more modest transformation of the DNA we already have. Elimination of genetic disease. Causing some genes to be 'on' more and some to be 'off' more. Perhaps even external triggers for internal events to allow greater intelligent control of otherwise reflexive processes.

And we'll probably see this starting in the next few decades. Just wait.

Answer 2

Humans are animals already. In fact human genes and the genes of other species are very similar. Chimps and humans are 98% identical. Mice and men are around 80%. Even a human and a bannana are 50% identical.

The challenge is going to learn how and where to change gene sequences, and this is means we are going to have to learn to read genetic information. All science knows how to do is read the letters. Perhaps before I die, humans will have learned to read some of the words, but understanding the entire genome means being able to read the entire book. Fortunately, all life on earth reads pretty much the same.

The one fundamental way humans are different than most other animals is that we are essentially free living fetuses. Humans have many fetal characteristics, like ultrafine hair, giving us a hairless appearance. Our intelligence is due to the fact we have an overgrowth of brain cells, another fetal trait.

What humans have in brains they lack in strength. Human athletics are pitiful for a biologist to watch. Despite all the Olympic hype, humans can run only a little faster than a platypus and swim a little better than an iguana. Our fetal muscles are weak in coimparison to animals even half our size. For example, even a female chimpansee can beat up the strongest adult male human, and the ape is only about 4 feet tall and less than 100 pounds.

Before humans begin creating a race of supermen, they will probably fix some of the really serious genetic flaws our species has. These consist of things such as genetic diseases like hemophelia and sicle cell disease.

Answer 3

When scientists talk about mixing genes between species, they refer to the resultant offspring as chimeras. At present - it is possible to mix them but there are scientific and social taboos that make this a very dangerous area. Scientifically, the results are not predictable as to what will happen in a particular cross. Socially, it's like playing god.

Answer 4

Nothing seems to be imposible any more. They have implanted a glow gene from another species into a fish in Japan so that now that particular species of fish glows in the dark.

Answer 5

I dont think with todays tech.