Question

List 2 potential problems associated with the use of genetically engineered agricultural (crop) plants.

How successful has gene therapy been in curing diseases?

A food product at the grocery store has printed on it, “Contains no GMOs”.

​a) What does this statement mean?

​b) How is a GMO produced?

​c) Give 3 examples of commonly consumed food products that usually contain GMOs.

What is bt corn?

Most attempts at cloning animals have resulted in normal, healthy adults. (True or False)

In what decade did genetic engineering begin?

If I wanted to determine whether or not I was related to someone (using genetic methods), I could compare our genomes to see if we had the same unique sequences in the same locations. These sequences are called ____________________ ____________________ (2 words)

Answer 1

Competition with Natural Species

Faster growth of GMOs enables them to have a competition over native organisms. This allows them to become invasive, to spread into new habitats, and cause ecological and economic damage.

Increased Selection Pressure on Target and Nontarget Organisms

There will be an increase in pressure on target and nontarget species to adapt to the introduced changes such as a geological change or a natural selection causing them to evolve distinct resistant populations.

The most notable diseases cured by gene therapy are the following.

Hemophilia
Patients born with Hemophilia are not able to induce blood clots and suffer from external and internal bleeding that can be life threatening. The therapeutic gene was introduced into the liver of patients, who then acquired the ability to have normal blood clotting time.

Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (ADA-SCID)
ADA-SCID is also known as the bubble boy disease which affected children to be born without an effective immune system and will prone to infections without bone marrow transplantation from matched donors. The therapeutic gene called ADA was introduced into the bone marrow cells of such patients and also there was a transplantation of the genetically corrected cells of the patients. The immune system was reconstituted in all treated patients without any side effects.

Chronic Granulomatus Disorder (CGD)
CGD is a genetic disease in the immune system where the patient is unable to fight bacterial and fungal infections that can be fatal. The immune system was reconstituted which provided them with full protection against microbial infections for at least two years.

Blindness
Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA) is a rare inherited eye disease that appears at birth or in the first few months of life. They were treated by gene therapy.

Cancer
Multiple gene therapy  have been developed to treat a wide variety of cancers, including suicide gene therapy, oncolytic virotherapy, anti-angiogenesis and therapeutic gene vaccines.

Neurodegenerative Diseases
Gene therapy has allowed treatments of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's Disease and Huntington's Disease.

Mesothelioma
Gene therapy research results in effective treatments for mesothelioma patients. Suicide genes have been used in clinical trials with pleural mesothelioma patients.

A GMO organism, is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism which is genetically made up or modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering technology. Food that contain GMO are called GMO foods.

a) The statement means that the food does not contain GMO that have changes introduced into their DNA.

b)The steps are as follows:

• Identifying the genetic information or gene that gives an organism a desired trait.

• Then copying that information from the organism that has the trait.

• And inserting that information into the DNA of another organism .

• Finally growing the new organism in a culture.

c) Soybean, Corn, Alfalfa, Canola, Squash

Bacillus thuringiensis is a species of bacteria that produces proteins that are toxic to certain insects. Btcorn is corn that has been modified to produce insecticidal proteins that occur naturally. Bt-corn is a type of GMO plant.

Most attempts at cloning animals have resulted in normal, healthy adults.

True

The origin of Genetic engineering based on recombination began in 1973 by American biochemists Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer, among them was the first to cut DNA into fragments, rejoin different fragments, and insert new genes into E. coli bacteria, which later reproduced.

Next generation sequencing