HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

Each cell in our body has approximately 3,150,000,000 nucleotides. If you printed out the letters, it would fill over 150,000 telephone books Genetic disorders are often caused by a single variation in over 3 billion bases (only 1 letter in all of those phone books)

Human Genome Project

One persons DNA was sequenced and all of the letters were identified The base letters from the chromosomes were all mapped This project was completed in 2003 Why do this? If we know the genes, we can figure out which genes code for each protein If we know which mutations cause which disorders, we may be able to fix those disorders. We can also detect disorders in-utero, and predict cancers, diabetes, parkinsons, huntingtons disease and other diseases.

Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering

Definition
use of recombinant DNA methods to alter living organisms to create, improve, or modify plants, animals, and microorganisms

1. Cloning
Every cell in an organisms body contains the full set of genes to make a new organism. Cloning is using one cell from an organism to make a whole new organism.

2. Medicine
Recombinant methods to make new medicines (ie: insulin, antibiotics, vaccines, hormones)
Cures for disease Gene Therapy

WHAT IS GENE THERAPY? Inserts Healthy Genes

1. This includes procedures to give patients healthy genes to make up for a faulty gene. 2. Also uses genes to treat genetic disorders and various human illnesses. 3. There are ex vivo (outside body) and in vivo (inside body) methods of gene therapy.

Examples of How Some Genetic Disorders May be cured with Gene Therapy

1. Children with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCD) underwent ex vivo gene therapy. a. They lack the enzyme ADA which helps to mature T and B cells (white blood cells), and therefore face lifethreatening infections. b. Bone marrow stem cells are removed, infected with a retrovirus that carries a normal gene, and returned. c. These bone marrow stem cells divide and produce blood cells with the normal ADA gene and all new blood cells will mature properly.

2. Treatment of familial hypercholesterolemia where liver cells lack a receptor for removing cholesterol from blood.
a. High levels of blood cholesterol make patients subject to fatal heart attacks when young. b. A small portion of liver is surgically removed and infected with retrovirus with normal gene for receptor. 3. Chemotherapy in cancer cells kills off healthy as well as cancer cells; we can give genes to cancer patients to make the healthy cells more tolerant or make tumors more vulnerable.

4. Cystic fibrosis patients lack a gene for transmembrane chloride ion carriers; patients die from respiratory tract infections.
a. Vesicles, are coated with healthy cystic fibrosis genes and sprayed into a patient's nostrils. b. Due to limited gene transfer, this method is not very successful.

6. Coating a balloon catheter (used to open up coronary arteries) with VEGF may promote growth of extra blood vessels.

5. New research may allow direct correcting of the base sequence of patients with a genetic disorder.

7. It may be possible to use in vivo therapy to cure hemophilia, diabetes, Parkinson disease, or AIDS.
a. Hemophilia patients could get regular doses of cells with normal clotting-factor genes.

b. Organoids (artificial organs) could be implanted in the abdominal cavity.

c. To cure Parkinson disease, dopamineproducing cells could be grafted directly into the brain.

3. Transgenic Animals
Inject animal eggs with BGH to produce larger fish, cows, pigs, rabbits, & sheep with more meat. Gene pharming: use of transgenic animals to produce drugs in their milk (ie: insulin, cancer drugs, & drugs to prevent blood clots during surgery) or urine (which is easier to isolate). Altered fat production (leaner meats) Creation of human-like organs for transplantation (xenotransplantation) Glowing animals

Using organs from animals to replace diseased ones in humans, instead of using donated human organs. Scientists are also trying to change the genetic code of animals such as pigs so that their organs are more acceptable to the human immune system.

ALBA THE GLOWING BUNNY Thanks to genes borrowed from a jellyfish, the albino rabbit glows green when placed under special lighting. In regular light, Alba appears like any other furry white rabbit. But place her under a black light, her eyes, whiskers and fur glow a otherworldly green.

"Glow in the dark" fish. These genetically modified fish were developed in Taiwan.

Scientists are planning to reproduce these fish in numbers and sell them for pets.

This monkey, ANDi (backwards for inserted DNA), doesn't glow. The gene for glowing is there, but for some reason it doesn't produce the protein that actually glows.

It costs approx. $300,000 to make him. That's 80 times what some researchers pay for a new monkey.
It wasn't easy, either; researchers inserted the glowing gene into 224 monkey eggs to get one ANDi. Costs should go down in the future.

The BBC is reporting that a new genetically modified mosquito has been created that is relatively resistant to malaria.
Insects that cannot be invaded by the parasite are therefore likely to be fitter and out-compete their disease-carrying counterparts. Malaria is passed to humans through the bite of the Anopheles mosquito. Each year it makes 300 million people ill and causes a million deaths worldwide. Some 90% of cases are in subSaharan Africa, where a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.
Before you spill all of your quinine out, researchers predict it will be 10-20 years before GM mosquitoes will be released into the wild.

4. TRANSGENIC PLANTS
In 2004, 120 million acres were planted to transgenic crops.

BT production (pest resistant) Crops with added nutrients (3rd world) Crops that grow faster and use less water Crops with greater yield Herbicide resistance Altered flower color Virus resistance Fungal resistance Parasite resistance Resistance to cold and freezing Flowers that smell pretty (again!) GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS

Transgenic improvements in wheat and rice will be needed to avoid food shortages in 2020.
Stomata leaf openings could be altered to boost CO2 intake or reduce water loss. Mouse-eared cress has been engineered to produce a biodegradable plastic in cell granules.

Plant-produced human hormones would be cheap and lack pathogens that could infect people.

Glow in the Dark

Tobacco Plant

AMFLORA POTATOES
Amflora is not a food at all. Although it looks, feels and smells like any other potato, each one is actually a genetically engineered factory for amylopectin, a starch used to make glossy paper coatings, clothing finishes and adhesive cement.
Normal potatoes combine amylopectin and amylose; the gene for amylose is turned off in Amflora potatoes, which taste terrible, and will never be turned into French fries or a potato salad.

What are we eating?

Herbicide tolerant cotton, beet, canola, corn, flax, and soybean Insect protected (Bt) corn, cotton, potato, tomato Virus protected papaya, potato, squash Ripening modified tomato

5. TRANSGENIC BACTERIA
Bacteria that degrade substances
Degrade

oil Biofilters for airborne pollution Clean up toxic dumps

Bacteria that process minerals

Use

bacteria to obtain metals in mining Bioleaching bacteria extract copper, uranium, & gold from low grade ore.

Bacteria that produce products

Synthesize

valuable drugs (antibodies, vaccines,

insulin) Synthesize phenylanaline for aspartame

6. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
FORGET genetic engineering. The new idea is synthetic biology, an effort by engineers to rewire the genetic circuitry of living organisms. Synthetic biologists aim to rearrange genes on a much wider scale, that of a genome, or an organisms entire genetic code. Their plans include microbes modified to generate cheap petroleum out of plant waste, and, further down the line, designing whole organisms from scratch. Grow a house is on the to-do list of synthetic biologists, presumably meaning that an acorn might be reprogrammed to generate walls, oak floors and a roof instead of the usual trunk and branches.

Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biologists are well aware that, like any new technology, theirs can be used for good or ill, and one possible danger is bioterrorism
Organisms have naturally occurring mutations in their DNA. This would not be so welcome to synthetic biologists, who seek stable systems. But they hope to spot mutations with error-detection algorithms and then go back to the original cells. You can think of it as a re-boot, said Ron Weiss, a synthetic biologist at Princeton.

7. Future: We will probably be able to have designer genes (to make genes to do whatever we want). So Should We?

What will this mean to you?

Some Risks from Introducing Foreign Genes (by Any Process)

1. New food safety hazards, such as

allergens 2. Unknown ecological impacts of new plant-incorporated protectants (PIPs) for pest resistance 3. Gene flow to related species 4. Outcrossing to neighboring crop fields