Gene Essay

23.Genes have more than one job. They have multiple instructions to produce many proteins. If each gene had one purpose, there wouldn’t been enough to produce all the proteins needed for human life.

As an eager fifth-grader in 2005, I quickly set my heart and sights on exploring genetics after a weeklong summer camp, “Designer Genes”, which ending in my running home with a small plastic tube of strawberry DNA I had proudly extracted, gushing to my family about everything I learned from transcription to translation. While new discoveries have drastically developed the field since, my interest and enthusiasm have yet to dwindle. As such, I elected to take advanced courses in biology/genetics and, beginning early as a rising senior in high school and ending only recently

Dawkins' gene is a personified entity, seemingly to the extent that it is an independent being to an extent. The "machines", therefore, are subjected to programming of sorts by the genes. Capable of selfish and altruistic behavior, the gene "reaches" outside of the human body to interact with its environment (3). "With only a little imagination we can see the gene as sitting at the centre of a radiating web of extended phenotypic power," stated Dawkins (3). By granting "phenotypic power", the genotype (as determined by the interaction of genes) behaves in such a manner which dictates the phenotype, or physical expression of the gene. By following this pattern—interaction between the gene and its environment, it is arguable that the environment is actually governing genotypic behavior. By this, the environment is not merely a factor manipulated by the gene, but instead can manipulate the gene itself.

The Human Genome Project is a worldwide research effort with the goal of analyzing the structure of human DNA and determining the location of the estimated 100,000 human genes. In parallel with this effort, the DNA of a set of model organisms will be studied to provide the comparative information necessary for understanding the

Biodiversity is life’s variety. It is the varying genetics that each species carries that makes it different and “unique”. Biodiversity is important, not only in evolution, but in survival; when sometimes those terms can mean the very same thing. Interestingly, biodiversity can mean a variance in the life itself – or within the genetics of a species. In keeping breeding habits within the same lineage, some animals risk lower biodiversity and sometimes even deformities and disease, as they are able to more easily pass on unfavorable hereditary traits. In increasing the overall biodiversity, the only risk is a

DNA is a term that has been used in science as well as in many parts of daily

The recently completed human genome sequence has greatly assisted the detection of QTLs and polymorphisms (2). It must also be emphasized that genes do not directly dictate action, but rather are mediated by the proteins that they code for. It is necessary to examine not only the genes but also the assortment of proteins responsible for expression of particular traits (3)It is anticipated that detailed analysis of the human genome will contribute to understandings about gene organization and transcription, and hence regulatory elements that control expression. By utilizing genomic and proteomic tools, the relationship between gene/protein and behavior may be more accurately described.

A gene is a region of a nucleic acid that contains hereditary biological information. For all cells, the nucleic acid is double stranded DNA, and it provides information for synthesis of RNA, and into protein, which is then expressed as hereditary traits in human.

Though HAR1 was present in other species, it had evolved extremely slowly until the emergence of humans. “The fact that HAR1 was essentially frozen in time through hundreds of millions of years indicates that it does something very important; that it then underwent abrupt revision in humans suggests that this function was significantly modified in our lineage,” writes Pollard. HAR1 is named so because it seems to have rapidly evolved after humans and chimpanzees split from a common ancestor. HAR1 is also unique in that it does not encode a protein. Before the research done and discoveries made by the Human Genome Project, scientists previously thought that all genes required proteins as the building blocks to their sequencing. Researchers now know that these protein-encoded genes make up only 1.5 percent of our DNA. The other 98.5 percent – sometimes referred to as junk DNA – contains regulatory sequences that tell other genes when to turn on and off. “…You do not need to change very much of the genome to make a new species. The way to evolve a human from a chimp-human ancestor is not to speed the ticking of the molecular clock as a

Today’s society has an ever growing thirst for knowledge as we have for many hundreds of years now. Scientists work around the clock studying the affects of nearly everything they can think of to conduct experiments on. This quest for knowledge is the supposed start to a better life for man kind and ultimately a world without disease or hunger. The human genome project is one that has been going on for about 20 years. This project set out to map, down to the last detail, every part of the human DNA structure (“Human”). The project has recently been completed and the scientists are now starting another project with their newly found information, to cure mankind of its ailments.

trait by other genes or the environment) is the rule rather than the exception” (pp. 23).

Smoller also explains, “[t]hese resources create opportunities for focusing genetic studies on biological pathways…[in] evaluating the functional significance of risk loci that may [identify] in the future” (Smoller, p. 310). He also distinguished,

The Human Genome Project (HGP), an international scientific research project, has educated the public tremendously on various topics concerning DNA and genetics. This study has been beneficial to communities alike. As stated, the HGP sought to identify all the genes in human DNA, determine the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, store this information in databases, improve tools for data analysis, transfer related technologies to the private sector, and address the ethical, legal, and social issues that may arise from the project. In favor of achieving these goals, scientists studied the genetic makeup of several nonhuman organisms (Human Genome Management Information System, 2011).

One of the fundamental discoveries of the 20th century was that DNA was the genetic code’s physical structure (Watson & Crick, 1953) and, since then, many studies have disclosed the complicated pattern of regulation and expression of genes, which involve RNA synthesis and its subsequent translation into proteins.

DeSalle and Michael Yudell. Welcome To The Genome: A User’s Guide to Genetic Past, Present, and Future. Canada: John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 2005. Print.