Genetic Engineering

Hey guys welcome to this Mometrix video over Genetic engineering. Now, genetic engineering is a broad concept, and involves a lot of foundational knowledge to truly understand its full depth. That’s why we spent time building a foundation in our biology series.

Genetic Engineering can be defined as the process of modifying the DNA within an organism’s genome, it’s also often referred to as genetic modification.

Genetic engineering could be a few things, whether it’s altering one base pair, or deleting a whole region of DNA, or introducing an additional copy of a gene; these are all examples of genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering could also mean drawing out the DNA from the genome of an organism and integrating it in with the DNA of another organism. Scientists use genetic engineering to alter and improve the traits of a single organism. It can be used on any living thing, from a tiny tiny virus to a large animal.

For instance, often genetic engineering can be controlled to adjust disorders in the human genome by removing the deficient gene, and replacing it with a working gene.

How does genetic engineering work?
There are six steps in the genetic engineering process.

• The first step is to select the gene that needs to be modified, or eliminated. This means that you will need to locate and isolate the specific gene wanted.
• Second, after the specific gene has been isolated it must be duplicated multiple times. To do this the DNA must be separated down the middle of the double helix and joined with the proper chemical.
• The gene is moved and placed within the tissue of the new organism. It’s not possible to place the gene or DNA into every cell of the organism, which is why it’s just placed in the tissue. The organism should then develop to complete maturity.
• Make a new animal or plant trait from the tissue that has been altered. With the new gene now within the organism’s tissue, the organism will keep growing, except with the new trait.
• Observe to see that the DNA injection is yielding the desired outcome.
• And the last step in the process is to check to make sure that the new gene is present in the offspring or seeds of the organism.

1973 was when the first ever organism was genetically engineered or modified. The same method of genetic engineering was applied to mice in 1974. Then in 1994 genetically engineered foods were made accessible for the first time. There are many advantages that come about because of genetic engineering, such as technological advantages, scientific research, and advantages in agriculture.

Genetic engineering has been used to increase the recoil, nutritional quality and value, and production rate of crops like tomatoes, rice, and potatoes. Also, it’s been used in bacteria to create large amounts of insulin pens for patients with diabetes, and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the ways genetic engineering can and has been used.

I hope that this video lesson was helpful to you. See you guys next time!