Genetic Engineering: Pros And Cons

Genetic engineering is manually changing the genetic structure of cells by adding a new DNA which has one or more new traits that aren’t existent in the particular organism. The aim of the genetic engineering would be to improve organisms. An example of a genetically engineered organism would be plants that can handle herbicides or crops with higher or lower oil content. Genetic engineering works by removing a gene from an organism and inserting it into another organism, making it capable to express the trait given from the gene. One specific gene is located and copied from thousands of genes, this is called gene cloning. The specific gene may be slightly modified to work in a more favorable way once inside the organism. (AgBiosafety, 2005).

Genetically modified wheat is wheat that has an added DNA structure that makes it stronger and able to tolerate herbicides, hostile weather conditions. Wheat is known to be more complex to genetically modify compared to rice or cotton hence the reason why it has a lot of debate around it and not on the market yet.

To transfer genes, scientists use yeast cells instead of bacteria because yeast cells are eukaryotic and they can translate genes from other eukaryotes. To transfer DNA, a vector is used in genetic engineering is a carrier. Bacteria contain vectors called plasmids, which are small circular pieces of DNA within the bacteria. An example in medicine would be diabetes. Before genetic engineering was common, doctor’s cures diabetes with animal insulin obtained from farm animals, but that used to cause allergic reactions in some patients. With the use of genetic engineering today, the human gene for insulin is inserted into bacterial plasmids and it alters to produce insulin identical to humans. This new insulin causes no allergic reactions to patients. Others products are found on the market today which include veterinary vaccines and human growth