Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

ANIMALS

Ji Young Kim

What is GMOs?

• In order to understand genetic modification it is first necessary to understand that living things are made of building blocks called cells.

• At the centre of each cell are long chains of a complex chemical, known as DNA. These DNA chains form the genetic material of the cell. When cells divide during the growth of an organism the genetic material forms a blueprint to enable new cells to be formed.

• Thus the first step in cell division is the duplication of the genetic material to form a copy that migrates to one end of the existing cell. This end of the cell is then separated off to form a daughter cell, by the formation an additional sheet of membrane that divides the new copy of the genetic material from the original copy.

GMO is an animal, plant, or other organism whose genetic structure has been changed by genetic engineering. GMO is an abbreviation for `genetically modified organism'

A GMO is an organism whose genetic material has been changed, altered using techniques known as recombinant DNA technology which is the ability to combine DNA molecules from different sources into one molecule in vitro (in an artificial environment outside the living organisms)

Brief History

The general principle of producing a GMO is to add genetic material into an organism’s genome (the genetic content contained in a haploid set of chromosomes in eukaryotes, in a single chromosome in bacteria, or in the DNA or RNA of viruses ) to generate new traits. The origins of this genetic engineering were a series from the discovery of DNA to the production, in 1973, of the first recombinant bacteria.

This led to concerns in the scientific community about the possible risks from genetic engineering and led to biologists meeting at the Asilomar Conference in Pacific Grove, California.

Herbert Boyer then founded the first company to use recombinant DNA technology, Genentech (a composite of Genetic Engineering Technology, Inc., is the leading biotechnology corporation, which was founded in 976 by Robert A. Swanson), and in 1978 the company announced that it had produced a strain of E. coli that could produce the human protein insulin.

USES GMOs OF

Example animals - such as mice, several fish species

Reasons for GMOs-applications aimed at improvement o

f human health (e.g., gene therapy: is the use of genetic material to treat disease )

-GMOs does not always imply, but can include, targeted insertions of genes from one into another species

EXAMPLES

GloFish: the first genetically modified animal to be sold as a pet.

GMO Salmons

PROBLEMS OF GMOs

Animals fed with GMO corn, for example, developed problems of their blood (leukemia), blood pressure, kidney, liver allergies to infection, increased blood sugar levels, diseases, and yes, even cancer. 

These are a toxic reactions to a poison.  (Even if the same effect doesn't occur in humans, think of the repercussions of us eating the meat of animals that ate the GMO corn and therefore unhealthy animals!)