If you extract the DNA from a single strand of hair, is there enought information provided for you to see a 3D model of the person?
2007-10-23 11:10:17 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
It is concievably possible to a degree. We would need to be able to get a complete sample of all your DNA from just a few cells (rarely possible now except under ideal conditions), we would need to know what every gene does (we don't), and we would need a computer powerful enough to model the activity of around a billion billion molecules (not even close).
This would not, however, necessarily look exactly like the person who you got the DNA from.
Just think of all the things you can change about how you look even without surgery or overt modification. You skin gets lighter or darker depending on the amount of sun you've been exposed to, and can change tone depending on your diet. Your hair style and nails are completely up to you. Your weight and muscle mass probably has a lot more to do with your activity level than your DNA. Callusses and scars, of course, depend on what you were doing to get them! And that's just the beginning.
On a deeper level the wrinkles on your face are dependant on the expressions you often adopt. Changing diet can make you taller or shorter when you are growing, as can exposure to a variety of environmental factors. Temperature and health can affect your development, and if variations arise when you are growing it's possible that this could have large-scale impacts on your bodily proportions.
And as someone mentioned there are non-DNA things that can be passed on as well and show on you.
Probably the best that can ever be done is producing a model that looks perhaps like a really close sibling, or a artist's sketch of you. There will undoubtedly be differences... but most of the time these won't be all that big. Still, there will also be exceptions!
2007-10-23 12:21:18 · answer #1 · answered by Doctor Why 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not using today's technology, and possibly not ever. Although you can tell a LOT about a person from their DNA, there's an emerging field in biology called epigenetics, and it describes how environmental factors can shape us in ways that are just as profound as our genes' influence on us. Given a few more decades of research, you might be able to make a reasonable guess as to what a person looks like, but you'll never be able to know with any certainty (until you actually meet the person, that is).
2007-10-23 11:18:29 · answer #2 · answered by Lucas C 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
not with today's technology as of yet, because the ability you are questioning about would require the following things: a capacity to fully understand just about every bit of Genetic code in DNA, and to integrate that knowledge into a database and selection of skin tones, height algorithms, bone densities, hair types and colors, aging rates, and even with all that... it would still need to know how old the person is, and what kind of makeup / nail jobs they might be doing (nails grow at different rates, but when you file them or cut them its not the natural rate of growth) also it can't assume any surgery that may have been done on the person or anything like that, so its only a partial job and can't nearly be done with current technology.
2007-10-23 11:17:25 · answer #3 · answered by umisguy 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
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2016-05-10 16:10:26 · answer #4 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
on a computer yes but you have to have some high tech computers and such, and you would have to extract the dna several times
2007-10-23 11:13:49 · answer #5 · answered by sig-MTD 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
in a science fiction movie or book.
2007-10-23 11:13:07 · answer #6 · answered by A7XFoREVer 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋