Finding The Secret of Life

1035 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on epigenetics

How the revolution in DNA Technologies changed our understanding of medicine and disease?
Intro;
When Watson and Crick discovered the Double Helix structure of DNA in 1953, they declared they ensured the discovery as “finding the secret of life”. Yet, as in all pursuits of science, the chronicle did not stop there.
60 years later, a team led by chemist “Shankar Balasubramanian” and cancer biologist “Steve Jackson” found an unusual four-stranded arrangement of DNA, known as G-quadruplexes which occur within the Telomeres, these G-quadruplexes which were found to have an affinity toward genes that have a role in controlling cell proliferation (these may play a role in the treatment of cancers in halting their proliferation with future research) (http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/a-new-dimension-to-dna-and-personalised-medicine-of-the-future#sthash.Kzyo4IZP.dpuf)

Knowledge of the Human Genome has been exponential in growth, concurrently knowledge of the “Epigenome” has also expanded over the last 10-15 years, with the result being that we know even less than we imagined. The implications are piling ever higher & we have more data being compiled daily than we know what to do with or how to analysis it coherently.

We will have a future of individualised medicine, gene targeted therapeutics, able to turn off and on any gene of interest via DNA hypermethylation, or hypomethylation, histone modification, RNAi and chromatin remodelling; Having the ability to target the over expression or lack thereof, with gene targeted therapies would allow us to treat disease even before it appears, there are trials around the world of new-borns having their genome being mapped to scan for disease, a single base change can silence or overexpress t...

... middle of paper ...

...ology for disease control: past, present, and future david weatherall, brian greenwood, heng leng chee, and prawase wasi
4. Integrating large-scale genomic information into clinical practice, steve olson, sarah h. Beachy, claire f. Giammaria, andadam c. Berger, rapporteurs, 2012; iso; 978-0-309-22034-7)
5. Http://www.lifetechnologies.com/au/en/home/life-science/sequencing/next-generation-sequencing/ion-torrent-next-generation-sequencing-applications.html)
6. Science. 2014 Mar 21;343 (6177):1360-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1250212. Epub 2014 Feb 27.Highly multiplexed subcellular RNA sequencing in situ. Lee JH1, Daugharthy ER, Scheiman J, Kalhor R, Yang JL, Ferrante TC, Terry R, Jeanty SS, Li C, Amamoto R, Peters DT, Turczyk BM, Marblestone AH, Inverso SA, Bernard A, Mali P, Rios X, Aach J, Church GM.
7. http://www.wired.com/2014/05/synthetic-dna-cells/?mbid=social_fb

Show More
Related

  • Ethical Issues Surrounding Genetic Screening and Genetic Engineering

    1918 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1990, the first great stride of genetics took place. This was called the Human Genome Project, a large-scale operation that was designed to understand the human genome (genetic structure). Since its commencement, there have been many leaps and bounds that have taken place. For certain genetic issues that we once knew nothing about, we no...

    Read More

  • Watson And Crick's Unzipping The Secret Of Life

    2684 Words  | 6 Pages

    In 1953, Francis Crick bragged to his fellow colleagues from the Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge), claiming that he and his American partner, James Watson, had “discovered the secret of life.” The claim, made in a bar over a glass of alcohol, was not unusual from the pair. In fact, workers in the Cavendish often found Crick to be tactless, arrogant and noisy; one even went so far as to comment that he had “never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood.” Yet, a little over a century later, it is undeniable that Crick’s statement is true. Using information derived from a number of other scientists, primarily Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins of King’s College, the duo solved a puzzle that had plagued biologists for decades; they created a three-dimensional model of the DNA helix.

    Read More

  • The Creation Of DNA By James Watson And Francis Crick

    1586 Words  | 4 Pages

    In April of 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published a game changing paper. It would blow the mind of the scientific community and reshape the entire landscape of science. DNA, fully knows as Deoxyribonucleic Acid is the molecule that all genes are made of. Though it is a relatively new term with regard to the age of science, the story of DNA and the path to its discovery covers a much broader timeframe and had many more contributors than James Watson and Francis Crick. After reading the paper the audience should have a better understanding of what DNA is, the most important experiments that contributed to its ultimate discovery and the names and contributions of the lesser-known scientists that helped Watson and Crick turn their idea

    Read More

  • Solving the Structure of DNA

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Double Helix by James Watson is his personal reflection on discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. With contributions of other scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick were able to solve the structure of DNA. Through contributions and integral relationships of Watson and Crick to Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, and other smaller contributors the DNA structure was finally solved.

    Read More

  • Skeptics and True Believers

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    Raymo uses for this is DNA and its ability to reproduce itself. This tiny double-helix

    Read More

  • Genetic Therapy: Moral And Ethical Issues In Gene Therapy

    1087 Words  | 3 Pages

    James D. Watson is a molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist. He is well known as one of the two men who discovered DNA. The other man who helped discover DNA is Francis Crick. Francis is a biologist, neurologist and a biophysicist.

    Read More

  • Mapping the Human Genome Vision

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the future, computing power will become greater and greater allowing for faster calculations and analysis of sequencing data. Also, there will be new robotics, micro-fabrication technologies and laboratory information management systems that will have to be applied to the challenges of the Human Genome Project (Bishop, 137). Furthermore, cutting edge researchers believe the really important discoveries won't come from looking at linear strands of genes but from examining the interaction between dozens of genes at once. Scientists could in theory use "biochips," arrays of hundreds of bits of your DNA placed in a silicon wafer, to examine how how a drug would interact with your particular biochemistry (Moore, 56).

    Read More

  • The Human Genome Project

    1338 Words  | 3 Pages

    This book is about the amazing task of mapping and showing all the sequences of the thousands and thousands of genes in the human body. The book is split up into nine chapters each of which covers a different aspect of this incredible project. The book tells all about almost every aspect of the project. It tells all about the project and what the point is, what has been accomplished so far, and when they expect it to be finished. According to the introduction the project is actually expected to be finished sometime this year.

    Read More

  • The Genome Revolution

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of genetic sequencing in the medical field has innumerable possibilities; genomic medicine, as this new field is now called, will enable the human race to make immense advances in understanding how our genetic heredity makes us susceptible to some illnesses and immune to others. The detection of diseases with a high rate of heredity is just one facet of the gem that is genomics; once researchers are able to map out all of the vital components and rare alleles that sometimes play a large factor in disease, it will be possible to target these specific gene combinations, functional elements, and alleles. Because of the fact that protein, produced by our cells’ ribosomes, has an effect on the pathways that help express our inherited traits, it is important that we understand the relationship between DNA and protein, and how this affects the phenotype of an individual’s genetic attributes. For example, sickle-cell anemia is caused by a flaw in one nitrogenous base sequence in DNA. This flaw then translates into RNA, then into amino acids that determine the phenotype that the subject will have. The discrepancy in something as minute as a nitrogenous base and one amino acid makes the difference between a healthy, normal life and a life ...

    Read More

  • Human Cloning

    2548 Words  | 6 Pages

    Voelker, Roger B. ¡§Who¡¦s Afraid of the Human Genome?¡¨ Hastings Center Report, July/August 1989: 19-21.

    Read More

  • The Human Genome Project Research

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    Is it possible to eradicate disease entirely? A half-century ago, little was known about how disease was affected by genetics. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA. In the mid 1970’s, ways were developed to determine the order, or sequence, of the chemical letters in DNA. The Human Genome was completely unknown to man until 1990, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy teamed up with international partners to complete the entire 3 billion base pairs of the Human Genome. The goal of this project was to understand the genetic factors in human disease and to hopefully find ways to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. The Human Genome project has supported an Ethical, Legal and Social research program to address the many issues that might arise from this study. The Human Genome Project should continue because it has the potential to unlock the cure to countless diseases.

    Read More

  • Ethics, Business, and the Human Genome Project

    1821 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Human Genome Project has brought to light the importance of single nucleotide polymorphism's (SNPs), which occur every 100 to 300 bases (1). A single nucleotide variation in the DNA sequence can have a major impact on how humans react to bacteria, viruses and drug therapy.

    Read More

  • The Double Helix

    1858 Words  | 4 Pages

    "The discovery of the structure by Crick and Watson, with all its biological implications, has been one of the major scientific events of this century." (Bragg, The Double Helix, p1) In the story of The Double Helix, James Watson tells of the road that led to the discovery of life's basic building block-DNA. This autobiography gives insight into science and the workings within a professional research laboratory that few members of society will ever be able to experience. It also gives the reader an idea of the reality of life for one scientist and how he struggled with the problem of DNA. However, the author's style is marked by his lack of objectivity and inclusion of many biased opinions and personal prejudices.

    Read More

  • Human Genome Project Essay

    3148 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Human Genome Initiative is a worldwide research effort that has the goal of analyzing the sequence of human DNA and determining the location of all human genes. Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome project was originally planned to last 15 years but now is projected to be complete in 13 years. This project was started to find the 80,000 - 100,000 human genes and to determine the sequence of the 3 - billion chemical bases that make up human DNA. The information generated by the human genome project is expected to be the source book for biomedical fields, including those such as developmental biology and neurobiology, where scientists are just beginning to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. The human genome project is expected to immensely benefit medical science. It will help us to understand and eventually treat many of the more than 4000 genetic diseases that afflict mankind, as well as the many multifunctional diseases in which genetic predisposition plays an important role. New technologies emanating from the genome project will also find application in other fields such as agriculture and the environmental sciences.

    Read More

  • Overview of the Importance of DNA

    1575 Words  | 4 Pages

    Simply put, DNA contains the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive, and reproduce. The discovery and use of DNA has seen many changes and made great progress over many years. James Watson was a pioneer molecular biologist who is credited, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, with discovering the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. The three won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 for their work (Bagley, 2013). Scientists use the term “double helix” to describe DNA’s winding, two-stranded chemical structure.

    Read More

More about Finding The Secret of Life

Open Document