Genetic Engineering An Organism - 2297 Words

What if diseases did not exist, people lived 50+ years longer than they do now, and the genes of unborn children could be picked? Sounds pretty appealing. But the catch is, it is not done naturally and there are still risks involved. Genetic engineering could have the ability to change generations to come and would target a huge amount of people and could even increase the population. Genetic engineering alters an organism s genetic makeup by unreal means, usually involving the transfer of a specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a completely different species. Also called transformation, genetic engineering works by physically removing a gene from one organism and inserting it into another, giving it the ability to express the†¦show more content†¦It is the carrier of genetic information and is the same in all organisms. DNA is critical to the success of genetic engineering. When a gene for a desirable trait is taken from one organism and inserted into another, i t gives the receiving organism the ability to express that same trait. Process of Genetic Engineering The first step in genetic engineering would be to find an organism that naturally contains the specific desired trait. Then, the DNA is extracted from that organism. After the one desired gene must be located and copied from thousands of genes that were extracted, this is called gene cloning. The gene may be modified slightly to work in a more desirable way once inside the recipient organism. The new genes, called a transgene is delivered into cells of the recipient organism. This is called transformation. Once a transgenic organism has been created, traditional breeding is used to improve the characteristics of the final project. So genetic engineering does not eliminate the need for traditional breeding. Traditional Breeding v. Genetic Engineering Although the goal of both genetic engineering and traditional plant breeding is to improve an organism’s traits, there are some key differences between them. While genetic engineering manually moves genes from one organism to another, traditional breeding moves genes through