Applied Genetics Ch. 24 How the Principles of Genetics are used.

How have humans applied Genetics?  People have bread plants and animals for specific desirable traits for thousands of years.  Selective breeding is the crossing of plants and animals with desired characteristics to produce offspring with those characteristics. Selective breeding

Other cases of Selective Breeding  Disease resistant plants such as corn and wheat.  Variations of flowers for color or shape  Bigger, leaner livestock

How is a Hybrid produced?  Sometimes breed offspring with two or more desired traits  Hybridization is the crossing of two different but related species. Hybridization  Ex. Mule (horse/donkey)  Beefalo

Mule Beefalo

Some plants offspring are bread together?  Some desired traits are amplified by inbreeding offspring of the same species.  This could make a desired trait more prominent, but will not allow new genes to enter the species.

Where is the future of Genetics?  Genetic Engineering is the process in which genes or pieces of DNA are transferred from one organism to another.  Combining DNA from one organism with the DNA of another.  This process is called recombinant DNA

Recombinant DNA

How does it happen?  Usually a gene from a higher organism is placed into to a lower organism.  Human genes have been inserted into bacteria and yeast to produce certain proteins. Ex. Insulin  A gene is usually inserted into a ring of DNA from bacterial called a plasmid.  When the plasmid is placed in a bacteria the bacteria will produce the protein coded in the plasmid.

Genetically Engineered Products  Medicine  Insulin,  Growth Hormone,  Vaccines,  interferons

More Genetically Engineered Products  Agriculture  Crops that fight disease  Freeze resistant crops

Cloning is apart of Genetic Engineering  Monkeys, sheep, and bacteria have already been cloned.  Should humans or parts of humans?

Is Genetic Engineering Right?  Arguments For  New medical breakthroughs  Save lives  Limit suffering from disease  Arguments Against  It is “playing God”!  We are messing with nature.  It may lead to a supreme race.

Web Task  Run a web search for information on genetic engineering.  Then in Microsoft Word, summarize two of the sites you found. Remember to give the addresses.  Once done with the summaries, give your opinion on genetic engineering and support it.  Save your paper to a disk and hand it in. Make sure your name is in the file name.

Task Scoring Rubric  5points for each site summarized in a complete well written paragraph.  5points explaining your opinion of genetic engineering.  5points for supporting your opinion with facts from sites or from the presentation.  Total of 20 points as a quiz grade.