Transgenic Animals Archive
Although the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 created a major furor in the media, from a scientific viewpoint it was a relatively small step in a developing technology. Cloning animals relies on the technique of nuclear transplantation . …
Several insects can now be genetically modified. The fruit fly Drosophila has been investigated at the molecular level for a long time and, not surprisingly, methods exist for introducing novel genetic material into these flies. P elements are transposons …
The three diseases that kill most people are acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis, and malaria. Each year, malaria infects some 300 to 500 million people and kills around 2 million, mostly African children. The Plasmodium parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes—as …
The somatotropin gene from cows has been cloned and expressed in bacteria thus allowing the production of large amounts of the hormone, which is known as rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin) . The rBST is used in the dairy industry to …
Transgenic animals, mostly mice, are of great value in the genetic analysis of inherited diseases and cancer. Here we are interested not so much in adding a cloned transgene as in discovering the function of genes already present. The general …
NEW AND IMPROVED ANIMALS For thousands of years people have improved crop plants and domestic animals by selective breeding, mostly at a trial-and-error level. Woollier sheep and smarter sheep dogs have both been improved through many generations of selective breeding. …