THE 10 MOST IMPORTANT APPLICATIONS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING - SCIENCE - 2024

The applications of genetic engineering are numerous. It is currently used in fields as diverse as agriculture and livestock or medicine. Since the cloning of Dolly, a Finn Dorset sheep born in Edinburgh (Scotland), in 1996, the world began to discuss the scope, applications and implications of the genetic manipulation with which a sheep had been born outside of natural conditions.

All these conditions had been until that day incomprehensible and unquestionable facts for the great majority of the population. Dolly showed that genetic engineering had already taken the first steps towards a future in which we now live.

Dolly was the evidence while the food industry, the drug industry, medicine or the environment are the realities of a science like genetic engineering.

This discipline has managed to put in our hands the possibility of altering the phenomenon of life at will, changing the natural characteristics of living beings and altering our perception of existence as a fact far from our control.

10 applications of genetic engineering

1- Agriculture

Cell recombination technology has succeeded in altering the genotype of plants in order to make them more productive, resistant to pests or more nutritious. These products are called GMOs (genetically modified organisms) or transgenic.

2- Pharmaceutical industry

Genetic engineering has been gaining significant importance in the production of medicines. At present, plants and microorganisms that form the basis of certain drugs are being genetically modified to create better vaccines, more effective treatments, enzymes or hormones at low cost.

3- Clinical diagnosis

Medical research has received from genetic engineering the knowledge necessary to identify genes that cause catastrophic or incurable diseases. These genes can be diagnosed early and cured or avoided, depending on the case.

4- Medicine (gene therapy)

Gene therapy is a technique that allows us to isolate healthy genes to insert them directly into people who have diseases caused by genetic malformations, thus achieving effective treatments. This therapy is, perhaps, the most promising and revolutionary contribution of genetic engineering today.

Cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, cancer or Alzheimer's are some of the human diseases that are being effectively fought from their microcellular origin.

5- Energy production

Genetic recombination technology is having a high impact on energy production. Every year huge quantities of biofuels (rapeseed, soybeans…), oils, alcohol or diesel are produced with products derived from energy crops that grow rapidly and with great resistance from genetically altered organisms.

6- Food industry

Every day in the supermarkets of the world, the racks are filled with products developed from genetically altered organisms. The food industry has found in genetic engineering a way to lower costs, increase production and find new products made through genetic research.

7- Forensic investigation (the genetic fingerprint)

DNA is unique and unrepeatable in each human being, it is a kind of microcellular fingerprint that allows the identification of each individual. Forensic medicine has been able to identify crime suspects or victims from blood, hair, saliva or semen samples.

8- Anthropological research

Genetic engineering techniques have made it possible to identify individuals from ancient cultures as well as to determine types and classes of migration and, from there, to determine customs and social organization.

9- Environmental cleaning

DNA recombination technology is being used to restore polluted environments, through the use of genetically modified living beings (microorganisms) that can cause the degradation of garbage, petroleum derivatives or toxic industrial waste.

10- Livestock

Not only vegetables can be transgenic, but also animals associated with the food industry are being genetically altered to produce greater amounts of meat, eggs or milk.

Processes have also been developed by which human genes are introduced into milk-producing animals to become "human protein factories" which are then extracted to make drugs.

More important facts about genetic engineering and the study of DNA

What does genetic engineering do?

Genetic engineering is the development of technological instruments that have made it possible to control and transfer DNA from one organism to another with the perspective of correcting those elements considered genetic defects.

Another purpose of genetic engineering is to aim at the creation of new species of animals and plants, or strains, in the case of microorganisms.

Dolly had been "created" from an adult cell, it was a clone, that is, genetic engineering had made a living being reproduce in a laboratory, manipulating the DNA of another living being.

Since then, genetic engineering has developed at such a speed, so much so that today our lives are surrounded by products developed from the manipulation of DNA.

What is DNA?

All living beings have been created from the reproduction of the characteristics that our parents have bequeathed to us, hair, skin, face shape, even personality and character traits that are included in the "package" that is given to us at birth..

These characteristics are transmitted in the genes, that is, the fundamental units that store the essential information for any living organism to function properly; Without this information, a being could, for example, be formed without lungs, be born without a hand or have a so weak that it would stop beating in a few days.

Now, genes are nothing more than the “building blocks” of a great construction called deoxyribunocleic acid, that is, DNA, and they constitute the very basis of life.

DNA (or DNA, for its acronym in English) is nothing other than an organic compound that contains the genetic information essential for a living being to be able to fulfill all its biological functions adequately, it is, in short, the basis on the one that life is built and without which existence would be inexplicable.

Now, DNA is made up of sequences of chemical compounds called nucleotides that are distributed in a specific order and in specific quantities, which give each living being originality. Even beings of the same species will always be somehow original and unrepeatable.

These sequences are variable, although they start from a basic structure that constitutes what scientists have called: the genetic code or genetic code. That is, a kind of alphabet that builds life and was deciphered by the American scientists Cohen and Boyer in 1973.

This discovery allowed the development of genetic engineering, which acts at the microcellular level, that is, intervening in these DNA sequences and building new forms of beings acting from the very origin of what we are.

The applications of genetic engineering are at our fingertips, although not all have overcome the ethical debate about their validity or quality. However, they have grown hand in hand with the industry that is using genetic manipulation technology according to their interests.

These interests are often justified by the need to improve possible failures of nature in the creation of living beings, or the need to create new beings that are capable of better adapting to the times we live in.

In all cases, science has defined responsibilities for the consequences that these applications have, but has not set them aside because scientific research has received financial support from the industry.

Otherwise, the research that has made possible the technological advances that we live would have been impossible. But this is another debate.

References

1. Electronic Journal of Biotechnology (2006-2007). Genetic engineering applications in animal breeding. Valparaiso, Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Recovered from: ejbiotechnology.info.
2. Biologydiscussion (2016). Top 4 Applications of Genetic Engineering. Article Shared by Preksha Bhan Recovered from: biologydiscussion.com.
3. The Future of human evolution (2010). General Applications of Genetic Engineering, by: Bijay Dhungel, MSc. Recovered from: futurehumanevolution.com.
4. UNAM Magazine. Immediate applications of genetic engineering. Recovered from: revista.unam.mx.
5. An Introduction to Genetic Engineering. Desmond ST Nicholl. Cambridge University Press, (2008). Recovered at: books.google.com.ec.