Genetic Engineering

Can we give an organism a unique trait like pesticide resistance, have it make a novel protein like insulin, or get it do something for us like clean up radioactive waste.

Genetic Engineering • Some organism has a good trait.

EX: it glows in the dark.• You want to make another organism glow in the

dark.• Take the gene for glowing in the dark out of the

first organism and put it in the other one.• Now they both glow in the dark.• How does this work?

Genetic Engineering

• Making insulin.

TTGCT TCTGCTAACATCGATCT TCAGCTAC AACGA AGACGATTGTAGCTAGA AGTCGATG

Bacteria makes insulin.

Recombinant DNA

Transgenic Organisms

• Genetically modified organisms or organisms with changed genes, will produce babies with their new traits.

• They are now transgenic or have genes from several organisms.

• How can this be helpful to humans?

• Tomatoes and Fish? Golden Rice?

Cloning• Make an exact copy of an organism.• Take the nucleus out of a donor egg cell.• Put the nucleus of the donor cell into an

empty egg.• Shock it.• The new fused cell begins dividing.• Put the new cell into a foster mother.• The baby is born.• It is the exact copy of the animal where the

nucleus came from.

Clone this sheep.

Why not clone tasty beef cattle?

Cloning People

• Would you want a clone of yourself?

• You could harvest its organs for transplant into yourself.

• You could just clone yourself to harvest the stem cells of the embryo, then use them to fix yourself.

Bill Nye GMO Video Quiz

• What two ways do we make new plant species with different traits? Which process is faster?

• What are some benefits of Genetically Modified Organisms?

• What are some fears of Genetically Modified Organisms?