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BiotechnologyWhat is biotechnology anyway, especially this GM stuff? We show you the range of research and applications that can be called 'genetic manipulation' and raise a few issues of science and ethics at the same time. Plus we'll examine the mysteries of age-old breeding programmes, discuss the banana enigma and think about whether introducing yeast into beer is the same as eating rice with an extra gene for vitamin A? Read on to find out how genetic engineering, has been applied to a variety of roses. We use the mysteries of body odour to explain the wonders of bioremediation. How can bacteria poo aid humanity? How can you use science to ensure you never need to do the laundry again? And how does all this relate to bioremediation, a type of biotechnology that uses micro-organisms to clean up sewage, oil spills, contaminated soil, mining wastes and lots more. Is dating all about your pong and not your pizzazz? Research suggests that love at first sight may actually be love at first whiff. We'll give you the lowdown on how researchers are using sex hormones to learn more about human mating behaviours. Spider web is pretty amazing stuff. It can be up to 50 times stronger than steel of the same size. Imagine the buildings we could construct with materials like that. Unfortunately spiders are hardly making enough to keep their own homes standing. It now seems that other animals might provide the answer. Can bacteria and fungus really remix music? The answer is yes! It's all a part of molecular computing! Does the world need more than one of you? Could we do it if we tried? Should we do it? Has anyone ever done it before? Who is CC, and why is Dolly the sheep called Dolly? We may even clone someone from the audience! You make up your own minds...we'll just show you what's being done, and how. In a world first, scientist have managed to attach an artificial tail on a red blood cell. Double the size double the chocolate - CSIRO scientists use gene silencing to increase seed size. Information about study & careers in biotechnology. Background Notes A brief synopsis of each of the biotechnology items in our shows and links to our references.
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue Or so you thought! A Melbourne based company Florigene had been working since 1990 to overcome what has until recently been an impossible task – to grow a blue rose! Obviously the genes required in making blue roses have been called blue genes. There is an essential chemical in these genes called delphinidin, which is responsible for making the blue pigment. Even if the rose has this gene it can’t make blue pigment as it is missing some of the other essential ingredients for making delphinidin. Another problem is that blue pigment only functions in an alkaline environment though rose petals are acidic. The company has isolated blue genes from other plants and successfully transferred them enabling roses to produce functional delphinidin. It is expected that later in the year they will be flowering. Reference
Return to top. Genetic Engineering - a sweat eating shirt Researchers have genetically modified harmless bacteria (a strain of E. coli), inserting a gene to produce a fluorescent protein as the bacteria grow, then impregnated this bacteria into fabrics. When provided with a nutrient food source the bacteria will begin to glow. In the future the researchers hope to genetically engineer a bacteria that could live off human sweat (not a very tasty meal!) in specially impregnated clothes. In this case the wearer would get glowing sweat stains as the bacteria grew, which is probably never going to be the height of fashion. A more practical future application is the idea of replacing the 'glow' gene with genes that produce a deodorant or perfume, so that when you sweat your shirt actually uses the sweat to produce a pleasant smell. No more deodorant! Other possible applications include bandages that produce antibiotics or antiseptics. References
Return to top. Last year Australian scientists were the first in the world to clone a cat. They cat they chose to clone was called Rainbow. Usually, if you want to make a cat you take a mummy cat and a daddy cat and they love each other very much. With cloning you only have one cat and, even though it might love itself very much, it can't make a baby cat on its own. The process is also much more complicated. The Process They remove an egg cell from Rainbow. This egg cell has half of the DNA needed to grow a cat, obviously not enough, so they suck out that DNA and end up with an empty egg cell. They then take one of Rainbow's body cells; a muscle or skin cell. They take the DNA out of this cell and inject it into the empty egg cell. You end up with an egg cell that has all the DNA (or information required to grow a cat). In fact all the information required to grow another Rainbow. They expose the egg cell to some radiation and some chemicals and these trick the egg into acting like it has been fertilised. Then they implant the new-DNA egg cell into Rainbow who gestates it and gives birth to Copy Cat a couple of months later. Despite arising from the same DNA, clones such as Rainbow and Copy Cat (known as CC) can actually look different. Rainbow and CC are different both in terms of size and their colour patterns. The reason for this is that a cat's colour is partly determined by how it is curled up in the womb of its mother. This is known as an environmental factor, a characteristic that is not controlled by genes but the environment around. People have characteristics that have been affected by the environment. Freckles, moles, scars and bleached hair are all the result of environmental factors rather than a persons DNA. Even if we cloned a person then the tow people would not look exactly the same because of these factors. Size is another (obvious to some) difference between cloned animals. Many people believe that a clone will appear exactly the same age as the animal that it was cloned from. This is not true. Clones, like naturally born animals have to grow up from a baby to an adult. Positives and Negatives of CloningThere are many people that feel that cloning is something that we should not be messing around with. They argue that the process has not been around for very long and yet it is being used in a large number of areas and on a large number of animals. These people feel that while we may be improving the process there is still an awful lot we don't know about cloning and that there may be consequences that we haven't thought of yet. There are also large groups of people that feel that cloning is ethically wrong, that we shouldn't be messing the natural method of reproduction. Another problem that has been associated with cloning is increasing a population's susceptibility to disease. When entire populations of individuals are all exactly the same they are all susceptible to the same diseases. If a disease affects one of them it will affect them all. However, there are many people that think that cloning is a very good thing. These people believe that cloning can help solve some of the huge problems that currently face the world. Problems like world hunger and diseases such as cystic fibrosis (cloning good bits of the body to replace bad bits). Cloning of human organs could one day mean that transplants would no longer require waiting for a suitable donor and there would never be the problem of the body rejecting the organ. References
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One of the areas that spider web is be considered useful is in construction. The strength, flexibility and light weight of the web means it is ideal in construction of large scale buildings as well as for building in space where space and weight restrictions are very tight. Spider web is also being looked at for aircraft, racing vehicles and bulletproof clothing. The big problem we have at the moment is that it is difficult to get large quantities of spider web. Farming spiders is pretty difficult because they tend to eat each other if you leave them together! Besides, it’s difficult to collect much of their web without getting well and truly tangled. However, a company in Canada is working on a method of producing large quantities of high quality spider web. Nexia Biotechnology has gone about collecting spider web in a slightly different way to most. Rather than using spiders, they are using goats. Using some pretty advanced technology, scientists from Nexia have managed to insert one of the spider genes for web into a goat's mammary glands. By inserting the genes into the mammary glands the goat produces the spider web proteins in its milk. Nexia have termed this silk 'Biosteel'. Nexia currently have at least two spidergoats, Webster and Pete who should be producing more spidergoats in the years to come. Biosteel has one further advantage; it is compatible with the human body. This means that it could potentially be used for strong, artificial tendons and ligaments or as super-thin, biodegradable sutures for surgery. Check out the photonics background notes for even more uses for spider web. References
Return to top. Edwardo Kac was a scientist who wanted to highlight GM and make people make their own decisions about the issue. He commissioned scientists to create the glow in the dark bunny by taking a fluorescent gene (GFP - Glowing Fluorescent Protein) from a jellyfish and putting it in a rabbit embryo. He did it and the resulting rabbit glowed under UV lights. The rabbit, Alba, died in 2001 aged 4 years (most rabbits live up to 12 years).
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P.S. They're now doing this to fish! At Swinburne University in Melbourne, bacteria and fungus are remixing music, redesigning furniture and inspiring artists and scientists. It started when Cameron Jones, a Melbourne DJ, mathematician and microbiologist, spilt beer on a CD and the CD went mouldy. When Cameron played the CD, the music sounded like it had been remixed. On a CD, the track read by the laser spirals round and round and is about half a micron thick. Along the track there are bumps between half a micron to one micron thick. This is what the laser pickup system reads as digital information and converts into music in a CD player. When Cameron looked at the CD under a microscope he found that at the micro-level (one millionth of a metre), the bacteria looked like tree branches. Because the 'branches' of the bacteria are about the same size as the bumps, the laser pickups were reading them as digital information and converting this 'information' to music as well. The sound being overlayed on the track wasn’t random because bacteria grow in an ordered though complex mathematical pattern called fractals. Cameron has tried growing different types of bacteria and fungus on CDs, DVDs and data CDs (pictures) to see what would happen. Now designers and artists can use this form of molecular computing to inspire them to new creative heights. Cameron has even played a whole set of bacteria and fungus remixed songs at his nightclub. References
Return to top. DOUBLE THE SIZE DOUBLE THE CHOCOLATE There are two ways to make more chocolate. Use more cocoa beans or use bigger cocoa beans. CSIRO scientists have opted for the latter agreeing that size does matter. Thanks to biotechnology and the well developed field of gene silencing soon we might grow larger cocoa beans, bigger coconuts, or in fact bigger seeds of all types. Gene silencing is exactly that, we choose a particular gene and then turn it off or just turn it down, similar to turning the volume down on a stereo. If we randomly choose a gene to “turn down”, when we grow those plants we can look to see what part of the plant has been affected. In the case of seed size the CSIRO scientists knew they had identified the gene for seed size when the plants they grew had small seeds. Now they have identified the responsible gene, they can try to increase its activity, or “turn it up”, to make bigger seeds. References:
Return to top. Red Blood Cells with Artificial Tail In a world first, scientist have managed to attach an artificial tail on a red blood cell. You might wonder why this would be useful. It would mean that with a tail, the red blood cell would be able to navigate and go where we want it to go. There’s no remote control, or artificial intelligence involved, not even robotics. What this means is that in the future, we may be able to attach artificial tails on medicine and direct it to exactly the right spot in our body. This means if we get sick, we will be healed much quicker, with far less side effects. So it looks like it will be a better and healthier future for everyone. Reference
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