From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 21:29:34 MDT
By the way, I tracked down the scientist cited on the Steele program:
Patrick Fogarty (his name wrongly given as `Fogarthy' in the TV report).
He's using transposons, and I can't see how this helps a Lamarckian.
Damien Broderick
JUMPING GENES MAKE `DESIGNER' ANIMALS EASY
March 27, 2002
New Scientist
Sylvia Pagán Westphal
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992092
Biotech company Tosk of San Francisco was cited as saying it can add genes
to mammalian cells with unprecedented efficiency with the help of fruit fly
DNA that can jump in and out of chromosomes.
The story says that the company's claims are being greeted with a mixture of
enthusiasm and scepticism by other biologists, who warn its results have yet
to be independently confirmed.
Tom Rosenquist of Stony Brook University in New York was quoted as saying,
"But if it works the way they claim, it's revolutionary."
The story explains that introducing genes into mammals is laborious and
expensive at present, so the technique is only used for research and to
create animals that yield high-value medical products. But if making GM
mammals becomes cheap and easy, companies could soon be modifying everything
from the farm animals that produce our food to our pets. Tosk's method could
even be used to correct genetic faults in people.
In Tosk's method the extra DNA is simply injected into an animal's
bloodstream. Tosk's chief executive Patrick Fogarty was cited as saying that
within a couple of weeks, it is integrated into a high proportion of cells
in many different tissues. Since some sperm and egg cells are also altered,
normal breeding can then produce animals in which every cell carries the
extra DNA.
When mice are modified by injecting DNA into their tails, Fogarty claims, 40
per cent of their offspring on average carry the extra DNA - an amazingly
high proportion. Tosk's secret is jumping genes, or transposons, which are
found in many organisms. They are genetic parasites: bits of DNA with no
function, merely the peculiar ability to spread themselves around by hopping
in and out of DNA with the help of a "cut-and-paste" enzyme called a
transposase.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Jun 14 2003 - 21:39:40 MDT