Traditional Methods Of Genetic Improvement

Selective breeding sometimes known as artificial selection is a procedure where humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits. They do this by characteristically by choosing which animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. This form of breeding is intentional from

Humans have been manipulating genetic transfer for over 10,000 years since our hunter- gatherer ancestors began to settle in one place and started farming and planting crops. Those humans observed and chose organisms from natural selection to select and breed organisms that showed characteristics desired by them and this began the process of selective breeding. Selective breeding favours recessive alleles that do not persist in wild populations. Selective breeding is a process of increasing the frequency of rare and recessive alleles so that they appear in homozygous form. This has the effect of eliminating the alleles for wild type from the population and the process of domestication has become irreversible. The domestic species has become dependent on humans for their survival. It is from these domestic species that humans have selected and breed favourable genetic traits for their benefit, be it higher yield in plant crops, sweeter tasting fruit, and more milk from dairy cows or ease of handling stock, selective breeding continues to be used today.

Should human genetic modification be allowed in today’s society? Many experiments with genetic modification on plants and animals involved trial and error. While there was success in the research, there also existed the cost of many errors. Scientists soon want to move onto the next step – genetic modification in humans. The human aesthetic could soon be in the hands of men. Recent advances in technology and research through other life forms have allowed us to consider this vast advancement in genetic modification. In studies of genetic modification, scientists rarely have 100% efficiency. We need to approach the concept of genetic modification in humans with caution. The magnitude of the advancement is immense; therefore, we need to approach this concept at a gradual pace. If we ignore these precautions, we risk human lives and deformities in the name of science. Exploring the possibilities of genetic modification is important to the future of science.

Farmers are using different technology for breeding. They used selective breeding to produce animals that exhibit desirable traits and they get more benefit from it. For example, using breeding techniques farmers makes cows which produce more milk with less lactose, and sheep which produce more wool. Farmers accept this new selective breeding technology because in the past, farmers would use growth hormones to promote such qualities. This became problematic when residue of the hormones remained in the meat, leaving it with a foul taste. When researchers began to clone transgenic animals, it became possible to develop certain traits in animals, which increased the quality of their yield. When a farmer would like to raise the standards of a herd, the breeding process is very slow and sometimes incomes can decrease (Wilmut 23). Many times when relying on sexual breeding alone to mass-produce these animals, there are chances of breeding out the desired traits (Freudenrich). Transgenic animal cloning will result in higher quality meats and dairies without the use of artificial hormones. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released in January 2008 concluded “edible products from normal, healthy clones or their progeny do not appear to pose increased food consumption risks relative to comparable products from conventional animals.” After 2008, US Food and Drug Administrative agree to use

Selective breeding also could cause a decrease in biodiversity due to inbreeding. Inbreeding is the production of breeding between closely related individuals [2] and is used as it increases the chance of having favourable alleles and desirable phenotypes in the offspring. However, due to the individuals close genetic relations to one another this can cause many problems for the biodiversity of the population of dairy cows. Traits that may be disadvantageous now will be continuously chosen against during genomic selection and embryo transfer as the DNA is being scanned and checked for undesirable traits. However, this disadvantageous trait may become an advantageous trait in the future but it will be lost through the generations of selective breeding against it and are difficult to get back. As a result, this affects the evolution of the species as a whole because they develop and change to suit the desirable traits chosen which results in the undesirable traits being lost altogether.

Humans have been able to use the principles of DNA replication, gene transfer and gene expression (as observed in nature) as tools to manipulate specific genes towards preferred outcomes. An advantage of being able to manipulate genetic therapy is the ability to eliminate/cure genetic disease/disorders with otherwise no other cure. Humans are able to remove the genes causing the genetic disorder from the gene pool of populations, allowing organisms to live longer and healthier lives. Two ways of manipulating genetic transfer which will be explored further in this report are selective breeding and gene therapy.

Altering genetic makeup seems like the impossible. However, several scientists globally have spent years trying to perfect just that. Choosing your child's hair colour, eye colour or even IQ seems like something from a fairytale; creating your dream child. Some say this is a simple process; selecting the gene and altering it to perfection. What many don't know is it is the complete opposite. Genes are often multi purposed, they contain multiple sets of crucial genetic information. By modifying a gene to change one thing can easily have a negative effect on another. For example, a person’s height is determined by the genes that affect growth, appetite and muscle mass”, that being said, if that gene were genetically modified to create the “perfect”

As scientists are experimenting with many methods of gene selection, the livestock industry are relying more on genetic selection. Genetic selection allow the farmers to produce the most fertile and efficient livestock. There are many impacts of genetic selection. Genetic selection allows the farmers to genetically modify the breed of the livestock to that mass production can occur to fulfill the need of consumers. With genetic selection the quantity and quality of meat and dairy production has been increased. I was not familiar with the technique of artificial insemination for reproduction biology until I took this class. I learned that artificial insemination is also a technique of genetic selection which allows the scientist to decide what kind of livestock they want. Also, to improve in fur quality of animal, the genetic selection is in used. With genetic selection, scientist can now improve the production rate of cattle. Genetic selection can also improve the physical characteristics of the livestock. To keep up with the world’s need in beef and dairy production genetic selections have a huge impact. Nowadays, the agriculture industries have been vastly improved because of the advancement in the genetic selections. Genetic selections also allow the farmer to modify animal more for either meat or dairy production. For example, Boer goat has been genetically modified to gain

The power of modifying genetics is at our fingertips, allowing us to change the genes of living creatures, which of course includes humans. The concern is; what genes should be modified, and which genes should be left alone. A company called 23andMe, named after the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a human cell, will provide ancestry genetic reports and uninterpreted raw genetic data using only a kit. Created in 2006, out of Mountain View, California, the company specializes in three different products or kits, an ancestry edition, a health edition, and a complete edition. Sadly, due to FDA regulations and complications, 23andMe has had to sideline the interpretation of their health-based products in the United States. Currently, 23andMe mainly

‘Selective breeding is the process by which humans select organisms with desirable traits and breed them together so the trait appears in the next generation. The process is repeated over many generations until the characteristic becomes common. Selective breeding now often uses reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination and marker assisted selection, so that the desirable characteristics of one male can be passed onto many offspring. This increases the rate at which the desirable trait is passed to progeny. Marker assisted selection is a molecular technique used to screen a genome for genetic markers that indicate desirable traits. (*1).

Induced pluripotent stem cells are derived from some control method, and patients can act as the major starting point for the in vitro differentiation and get into human being brain cells for diagnosis of some novel treatment for major human diseases without going back to the same limitations connected with embryonic stem cells. Many groups have carried out various researches on Huntington disease using different CAG lengths including analyzing cells from victims with one or two HD alleles (An, Mahru C., et al. 2012). Although it may seem that these discoveries might be somehow encouraging in the field of medicine the use of iPSCs reproducible

I am writing to you to explain the problems concerning genetic modification in humans. The field of genetics has come so far in the past decade, and there are currently efforts being made to correct autosomal recessive diseases, such as Hemophilia B.1 I agree that being able to cure diseases, like Hemophilia, is important, but it also means that scientists would be able to create “designer humans.” The concept of “designer genes” in human modification reinforces the idea that there is an ideal human which is both ableist and catered strictly to upper class individuals. In this letter, I am expressing my opinion that while advances in genetic engineering are being made, it is important to remember that science should not progress to the point that we are removing all imperfections.

      In the past three decades, scientists have learned how to mix and match characteristics among unrelated creatures by moving genes from one creature to another. This is called “genetic engineering.” Genetic Engineering is prematurely applied to food production. There are estimates that food output must increase by 60 percent over the next 25 years to keep up with demand. Thus, the result of scientist genetically altering plants for more consumption. The two most common methods for gene transfer are biological and electromechanical. “Early experiments all involved changing DNA using bacterial vectors”(Randerson, 2001). Through other advances scientists proclaim how they can improve the human gene pool. All humans have

Genetic modification (GM) is the use of modern biotechnology techniques to change the genes of an organism such as plants or animals. No one is permitted to deal with a genetically modified organism (GMO) in Australia unless the Australian Gene Technology Regulator has determined that the GMO is safe to human health and the surrounding environment. As the world’s population continues to increase and is expected to double within the next few years, the world’s demand for food and fibre has increased drastically. GM foods and fibres seem to be the only means for a solution to provide for the high demand in which we now face. (Agric.wa.gov.au, 2014)

Technology has been getting more and more advanced meaning that scientists have access to more advanced equipment and can conduct more complicated experiments. Scientists have found ways of enhancing and changing the genetic makeup of organisms when they are forming making it possible to customize and choose different traits and features about an organism’s physical appearance. This is very useful for farmers as they can breed their animals to have a certain trait or characteristic. For example, a farmer may want a muscly cow so with today’s studies it is possible to collect the semen from their muscliest bull and choose the strongest sperm then artificially inseminate an egg from their muscliest cow to produce a muscly calf. They can then repeat this procedure once the calf grows up and eventually over a couple of generations of this they will end up with a very muscly cow. This is called artificial