Genetic engineering is a combination of methods, techniques and technologies for isolating genes from cells or an organism, producing recombinant RNA and DNA, performing various manipulations with genes, as well as introducing them into other organisms. This discipline contributes to the desired characteristics of a changing organism.
Genetic engineering is not a science in the broad sense, but is considered a biotechnological tool. It uses the research of such sciences as genetics, molecular biology, cytology, microbiology.
The created methods of genetic engineering related to the management of heredity were one of the most striking events in the development of science.
Scientists, molecular biologists, biochemists have learned to change, modify genes and create completely new ones by combining genes from different organisms. They also learned how to synthesize material in accordance with given schemes. Scientists began to introduce artificial material into organisms, making them work. Genetic engineering is based on all this work.
However, there is some limitation of the “biological material”. Scientists are trying to solve this problem using tissue cultures and plant cells. Experts note that this path is quite promising. Over the past few decades, scientists have created techniques by which certain cells from plant or animal tissues can be made to develop and multiply independently, separately from the body.
Genetic engineering advances are important. Cell cultures are used in experiments, as well as in the industrial production of certain substances that cannot be obtained using bacterial cultures. However, there are difficulties in this area. For example, the problem is the lack of ability in animal cells to divide as infinitely many times as bacterial cells.
During the experiments, fundamental discoveries were made. So, for the first time a “chemically pure”, isolated gene was developed. Subsequently, scientists discovered ligase and restrictase enzymes. With the help of the latter, it became possible to cut the gene into pieces - nucleotides. And with the help of ligases, you can vice versa connect, “glue” these pieces, but in a new combination, creating and constructing a different gene.
Significant successes were achieved by scientists in the process of "reading" biological information. For many years, W. Gilbert and F. Senger, American and English scientists, have been deciphering the data embedded in the genes.
Experts note that genetic engineering for the entire period of its existence did not have a negative impact on the researchers themselves, did not cause harm to humans and did not harm nature. Scientists note that the results achieved both in the process of studying the functioning of mechanisms that ensure the vital activity of organisms, and in the applied industry are very impressive. At the same time, the prospects seem truly fantastic.
Despite the great importance of genetics and genetic engineering in agriculture and medicine, its main results have not yet been achieved.
Scientists face quite a lot of tasks. It is necessary to determine not only the functions and purpose of each gene, but also the conditions under which it is activated, in which periods of life, under the influence of which factors, in which particular areas of the body, it turns on and provokes the synthesis of the corresponding protein. In addition, it is important to find out the role of this protein in the life of the body, what reactions it triggers, whether it goes beyond cellular limits, and what information it carries. Enough is the problem of folding proteins. The solution of these and many other problems is carried out by scientists in the framework of genetic engineering.