April 22, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR KRISTIN TAGHON IN IL
Hi, Sally.
Your first question: What is the difference between cloning and genetic engineering?

Well, here is a site that tells you the different kinds of cloning. There are
three types. (1) recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, (2) reproductive
cloning, and (3) therapeutic cloning.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml

Cloning is very controversial, from a religion standpoint. I offer this website
to read why.
http://www.faithlinks.org/

Here's a paragraph from that website that is the nucleus of the problem:

"Some scientists applauded the successful creation of a cloned mammal as a giant
leap toward the identification and eradication of diseases, and as presenting a
new option to be exercised in the quest to procreate. Others condemned the
accomplishment, suggesting it was a gross overreach of man’s desire to control
life, which opens the door to horrific abuses, such as creating "designer
babies" and little photocopies of the rich and famous."

Cloning is a TYPE of Genetic Engineering. Here is a website that says what
Genetic Engineering is, why it is done and what are the dangers. Of course,
this website is against Genetic Engineering and other scientists believe that it
is a good thing.

http://www.netlink.de/gen/fagan.html#whatis

"WHAT IS GENETIC ENGINEERING?
Genes are the blueprints for every part of an organism. Genetic engineering is
the process of articficially modifying these blueprints. By cutting and splicing
DNA-genetic surgury-genetic engineers can transfer genes specific to one type of
organism into any other organism on earth.

WHY DO IT?
Scientists want to transfer desirable qualities from one organism to another,
for example, to make a crop resistant to an herbicide or to enhance food value.

WHAT ARE THE DANGERS? (Please see more detailed discussion below.)
Those identified so far include:

New toxins and allergens in foods
Other damaging effects on health caused by unnatural foods
Increased use of chemicals on crops, resulting in increased contamination of our
water supply and food
The creation of herbicide-resistant weeds
The spread of diseases across species barriers
Loss of bio-diversity in crops
The disturbance of ecological balance
Artificially induced characteristics and inevitable side-effects will be passed
on to all subsequent generations and to other related organisms. Once released,
they can never be recalled or contained. The consequences of this are
incalculable."

I believe the second question about the drawbacks are answered by reading these
websites. Some feel that not enough study has been done to know what the
effects of genetic engineering are for the future. Will cloned animals or
children live normal lives? Will they develop diseases or abnormalities?
Genetically engineered food : In the long run, will they cause problems in our
health?

Future careers would be in biotechnology or possibly environmental engineering.
You might be trying to prove genetic engineering can help, or prove it is
dangerous.

Here is a website that lists how biotechnology HELPS society:
http://www.whybiotech.com/

"What's New: Biotechnology helps create long-lasting soybean oil that's better
for your heart.
This newly updated brochure provides a comprehensive overview of the benefits
of plant biotechnology.
Genetically enhanced potatoes absorb less oil when cooking.
New varieties have higher levels of healthful oleic acid.
What's New:
New varieties of rice and wheat could ease global water shortages.
Families earn 34 percent more planting Bt corn — enough to support a family of
five.
Growers say insect-protected corn can withstand high winds of northern Spain.
Corn that repels rootworm helps boost adoption rates."
Here is another website that shows that biotechnology engineers have to defend
themselves:
http://www.bio.com/
or more specificially, in an article from that website, read this:
http://www.bio.com/newsfeatures/newsfeatures_research.jhtml;jsessionid=4SAI5OQCPBDV5R3FQLMCFEWHUWBNSIV0?sectionId=2&contentType=Articles&cid=144347919

"04/21/04 -- HIV-AIDS did not come from oral polio vaccine contaminated with
chimpanzee virus, reports a research team led by a University of Arizona
evolutionary biologist.
Belief that polio vaccine can spread AIDS has hampered the World Health
Organization's efforts to stamp out polio. In Nigeria, several states recently
banned use of the vaccine. Nigeria now has the highest number of polio cases in
the world.
Although scientists agree that HIV comes from a chimpanzee simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that infected humans, when and how SIV jumped the
species barrier has not been definitively determined.
The researchers found and sequenced genetic material from a new strain of SIV
present in wild chimpanzees in the Kisangani region of the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC)."

Another career: Genetic Engineer - test embryos for chromosomal abnormalities.
Or possibly develop tests that can be used to test embryos for chromosomal
abnormalities.

Also, genetic engineering may help to find cures. Perhaps a scientific
discovery found during genetic engineering will inadvertently help resolve a
problem.

I'm sure there are MANY MORE careers out there for genetic engineers. Some are
more controversial than others. Quite often, the research part is very
controversial and is very tedious because tests have to be run over and over.
Other areas may not be as controversial - like developing ways to provide better
nutritional value to food. This may be considered controversial to those who
believe that organic is the only way to go.

Very good question! And I looked all this up online, so I am no expert on this
topic. Someone else may read this and have some corrections for me. Also, it's
such a vast field that I am understating the answers. I hope this answer
helped.
********************
A: FROM MENTOR LESLIE WAITE IN CA
Hi Sally;
Interesting questions!
First, I have to make some distinctions about cloning, because it can
have a few different meanings. When you clone DNA you take a gene or
a part of a gene and you put it into an organism where it normally
would not be. Scientists do this a lot, for example to put a gene for
a specific protein into a bacterial cell so that the bacteria will
grow and make lots of the protein which the scientist can then study.
Or to replace a regular gene in a fruitfly with "nonsense" DNA so
that the scientist can see what happens if the gene is no longer
present in the fly. This helps us figure out what specific genes and
proteins do. All of this type of work would be called genetic
engineering, because you are changing the genes of a specific
organism away from their "wild type" state.

The other way that cloning gets used is more in the news these days.
That is, to take the nucleus from an adult cell, and put it into an
egg of an animal that has had its own nucleus removed, and grow a new
animal from it that will be genetically identical to the animal that
the adult cell came from. This would also be called genetic
engineering, but it is only a small fraction of what a genetic
engineer does.

I am not sure what you mean by drawbacks, but I can talk about both
why people object to these procedures, and why they are sometimes
hard to do.

Why people object: people object to genetic engineering for several
reasons, some based in logic, some based in fear. Recently, a fair
amount of genetic engineering has been targeted at "improving" food.
Some crops have had genes added to them to make them more resistant
to cold weather, or certain insects or fungi for example, so that
more food can be grown successfully without losing a lot of it to
insects that might try to eat it. Some efforts have been made to add
genes that will increase the vitamins in foods. Many of the genes
that are inserted into these plants come from other organisms that
naturally resist these pests, or can withstand cold. Some people
worry that by putting genes into corn that started in shrimp, you may
be creating something that is bad for your health, or that might
cause you to be allergic to corn when you are really allergic to the
shrimp gene that was put into the corn. Some worry that these
alterations cause the corn to kill "good" insects. There was some
concern for a while that some plants that were meant to be resistant
to certain pests might also be toxic to butterflies.
When it comes to cloning of organism, people fear that scientists
have gone too far, and that only God should be allowed to create
animals, not people. Some also worry that we don't know enough about
the health of cloned animals to know whether it is safe to do,
especially if we start thinking of cloning humans.

Why these procedures are hard to do: genetic engineering of single
genes is actually not that hard to do. You might not get as much of
the protein made from your gene as you wish though, because different
organisms have different ways of regulating whether or not a gene
gets made into a protein, and we are still learning about how that is
done, so sometimes even though the gene is in the new organism, it
doesn't get made into a protein, or very little gets made, so it
doesn't do any good.

As for cloning of organisms, we simply have a lot to learn about what
is necessary for an egg to develop into an organism, and so we are
not very good at it.

As for future career options in these fields, I can't say, but i know
that the skills needed to do these techniques are used in a variety
of fields, and a good molecular biologist will always have lots of
opportunities in science.

Leslie
Who is a good molecular biologist :)