What's the role viruses play in genetic engineering?
116848
Some viruses ('phages') can be used to insert certain genes into the living cell. This isn't a standard procedure in any way, but it's becoming more and more studied...
454026
Genetic engineering is the manipulation of the DNA of one organism by the introduction of a gene from another organism. After adding the gene, the gene starts functioning normally and we get the desired characteristics we want in that organism.\nThe gene can be introduced by 'carriers' or vectors- like viruses, bacteria or a spray of liposomes.
714120
Genetic engineering can, indeed solve many health and ecological issues such as preventing diseases involved in transcription, etc. and increasing crop yield.  Whether or not it's the hope of the future is unique to each person.
81167
Think!!! \n\nIf u did not have so many genes, then u wud have been a virus urself!! No offence meant!!!\n\nViruses actually need their genes for "survival" (if u can call it), proliferation eventually destruction. They are obligate parasites.\n\nCells need genes for a lot more functions than viruses. So, the reason is obvious.
570228
There's also cell apoptosis.  infected cells put out a self-destruct signal so the virus can't reproduce.  its actually what i work on, with herpes
1042798
The current understanding of the biology of aging and disease is still quite limited, to the point that we probably won't see any major breakthroughs in the next century. There have been some studies in model organisms (such as the nematode and the fruit fly) that suggest that there are genes that regulate aging. However, this is not well understood in these organisms, and very poorly understood in humans. There are human cell lines (cells that grow in growth medium) that are "immortalized," that is, they continue dividing apparently forever, but these are a far cry from an organism put together like you or I. These cells often come from cancerous tumors and have extremely disrupted genotypes, such that basically all they can do is grow and divide. \n\nNot only do we understand little about the aging process itself, but any hopes of human genetic engineering depend on the ability to change a person's genetic complement. This, of course, is remarkably difficult in adults, who have countless cells that would have to be changed. Some "gene therapy" techniques have been tried in humans, including viral vector-based gene delivery systems. These show some promise, but there haven't been any major breakthroughs. An alternative is to try to engineer an organism from the very beginning; that is, to manipulate a zygote. However, this is widely considered to be unethical, at least in the case of humans.\n\nMy opinion is that through genetic technology, we will make better and more effective cures and preventative therapies, which will have the potential of increasing the length and quality of our life. Overcoming death is a completely different story (and a very interesting question for philosophy and religion!).
415464
Viruses need to be inside of a  host cell (human, bacteria, plant etc.) to reproduce. So to get inside the host they have surface proteins (sticking out of a lipid bilayer-just like most mammalian cells) that are able to trick the host cell into letting it inside, that's where it does the damage to the host. ---To simplify the virus needs to have a Protein Coating that is similar to the Protein Receptors on its host cell in order to infect it.---
744883
Viruses are made up of proteins and DNA or RNA.The head and tail are formed by the proteins and  the core contains DNA or RNA.With the help of the tail it squirts its genes (DNA or RNA) into the cytoplasm of the host cell.The genes are finally integrated into the genome of the host.The RNA genes are first transcribed as single strand of DNA and then made double helix before being integrated into the host genome.This is is done by the enzyme called reverse transcriptase.The genes of virus are transcribed and then the RNA translated into the viral proteins on the host ribosomes. These proteins and viral DNA or RNA are packed to form new viral particles. This kind of assembly is rapid and the particles fill the host cell. The particles are released from the cell by rupturing it.These newly formed particles attack fresh host cells and the process goes on.
711961
Hi Genetic engineering is done with a purpose, for making human insulin by the use of bacteria for instance. Genetic modification can be caused by an errant cosmic ray.
442333
We can treat some diseases caused by viruses by vaccinations. Smallpox was eradicated through vaccination. Viruses use the host cell to replicate rather than cell division. They make many copies of themselves and in doing so mutate when a mistake is made in copying. Antiviral treatments try and stop the virus from replicating itself.\n\nThere are two types of mutation at least in influenza viruses: antigenic drift where the viruses mutate gradually and antigenic drift where the change is more sudden. Most viruses don't mutate all that often but HIV and flu viruses do.
527137
Medical Therapy.\n1- Cells can be engineered to produce a pathogen's surface protein, which can be used as a subunit vaccine. \n\n2-Synthetic genes linked to the β-galactosidase gene in a plasmid vector were inserted into E. coli, allowing E. coli to produce and secrete the two polypeptides used to make human insulin. \n\n3-DNA probes can be used as rapid diagnostics to identify a pathogen quickly in body tissue or food. \n\n4-Genetic screening uses Southern blotting to look for mutations responsible for inherited disease in humans.\n\nAny Help?
138736
Viruses are infectious agents that require cells for their reproduction.  The replicate by controlling a living cell’s material independently of the cell’s DNA.  This cell is called a Host.  The viral genetic material can be double stranded DNA, single stranded DNA or RNA.  A virus out side of a living cell is called a virion and is metabolically inert.  (It is also covered by a protein or other coating).  They do mutate readily.\nOnce inside a living cell, the virus sheds it’s coating and deactivates much of the genetic material of the cell, only allowing that which it needs or which do not interfere with their replication.  They then force the cell to replicate their genetic material as new virions which will be released when the cell ruptures.\nOpite gave good info on the size of the virus in terms of linear measurements.  Size, in terns of the number of bases runs from as few as 5,000 bases (single strand DNA) for the H-1 parvovirus to about a half a million base pairs in the largest.\nViruses are not considered to be alive.
541442
Applications of Genetic ENGINEERING\n\nThe first Genetically Engineered drug was human insulin approved by the USA's FDA in 1982 [1]. Another early application of GE was to create human growth hormone as replacement for a drug that was previously extracted from human cadavers. In 1986 the FDA approved the first genetically engineered vaccine for humans, for hepatitis B[2]. Since these early uses of the technology in medicine the use of the GE has expanded to supply many drugs and vaccines.\n\nOne of the best known applications of genetic engineering is that of the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).\n\nThere are potentially momentous biotechnological applications of GM, for example oral vaccines produced naturally in fruit, at very low cost.\n\nA radical ambition of some groups is human enhancement via genetics, eventually by molecular engineering. See also: transhumanism.\n\nDNA sequencing is a technique which is used to identify each base in DNA. Although the costs of DNA sequencing has dropped dramatically, the NIH estimates it costs at least $10 million to sequence 3 billion base pairs [3] - the size of the whole human genome.\n\n[edit]\nGenetic Engineering and Research\nAlthough there has been a tremendous revolution in the biological sciences in the past twenty years, there is still a great deal that remains to be discovered. The completion of the sequencing of the human genome, as well as the genomes of most agriculturally and scientifically important plants and animals, has increased the possibilities of genetic research immeasurably. Expedient and inexpensive access to comprehensive genetic data has become a reality, with billions of sequenced nucleotides already online and annotated. Now that the rapid sequencing of arbitrarily large genomes has become a simple, if not trivial affair, a much greater challenge will be elucidating function of the extraordinarily complex web of interacting proteins, dubbed the proteome, that constitutes and powers all living things. Genetic engineering has become the gold standard in protein research, and major research progress has been made using a wide variety of techniques, including:\n\nLoss of function, such as in a knockout experiment, in which an organism is engineered to lack the activity of one or more genes. This allows the experimenter to analyze the defects caused by this mutation, and can be considerably useful in unearthing the function of a gene. It is used especially frequently in developmental biology. A knockout experiment involves the creation and manipulation of a DNA construct in vitro, which, in a simple knockout, consists of a copy of the desired gene which has been slightly altered such as to cripple its function. The construct is then taken up by embryonic stem cells, where the engineered copy of the gene replaces the organism's own gene. These stem cells are injected into blastocysts, which are implanted into surrogate mothers. Another method, useful in organisms such as Drosophila (fruit fly), is to induce mutations in a large population and then screen the progeny for the desired mutation. A similar process can be used in both plants and prokaryotes. \nGain of function experiments, the logical counterpart of knockouts. These are sometimes performed in conjunction with knockout experiments to more finely establish the function of the desired gene. The process is much the same as that in knockout engineering, except that the construct is designed to increase the function of the gene, usually by providing extra copies of the gene or attracting more frequent transcription. \n'Tracking' experiments, which seek to gain information about the localization and interaction of the desired protein. One way to do this is to replace the wild-type gene with a 'fusion' gene, which is a juxtaposition of the wild-type gene with a reporting element such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) that will allow easy visualization of the products
417609
Generally the idea is that the DNA does not necessarily have to be introduced into every cell of the human body to cure a disease because not every cell in the body may be affected by the disease. \n\nCurrently the main idea is using viruses which are made harmless to humans. Viruses can insert DNA into their host. They can infect either only a certain cell type or a wide variety. \n\nRead up more detail about viruses used and non-viral options using the link provided or do further research using a search engine. \n\nIf it is a genetically inheritable disease I assume that the best option is if there is a very high risk for the children to have a genetic disease they would try to manipulate the DNA in a fertilized egg, so probably techniques from in-vitro fertilization would be used. Don't know if that works yet, but I am sure there is a website out there which explains that.
427295
Yes they do and therefore are able to propogate their own kind (also able to show variations by genetic recombination). DNA or RNA both can be used as the building blocks. \n\nThey however try to carry a small baggage when traveling and use the host cell machinary to produce stuff that they need along the way.\n\nA virus is a submicroscopic parasitic particle that infects cells in biological organisms. The study of viruses is virology.\n\nViruses are obligate intracellular parasites that lack the cellular machinery for self-reproduction. Viruses infect eukaryotes and prokaryotes such as bacteria; viruses infecting prokaryotes are also known as bacteriophages or phages. Typically viruses carry a small amount of genetic material, either in the form of DNA or RNA, but not both, surrounded by some form of protective coat consisting of proteins, lipids, glycoproteins or a combination. The viral genome codes for the proteins that constitute this protective coat, as well as for those proteins required for viral reproduction that are not provided by the host cell.\n\nViruses are non-living particles that can only replicate when an organism reproduces the viral RNA or DNA. Viruses are considered non-living by the majority of virologists because they do not meet all the criteria of the generally-accepted definition of life. Among other factors, viruses do not move, metabolize, or decay on their own. However, a comprehensive definition of life is still somewhat elusive since some bacteria (considered living) like rickettsia exhibit both characteristics of living and non-living particles.\n\nBecause viruses are acellular and do not have their own metabolism, they must utilize the machinery and metabolism of the host for the purpose of self-replication. Before a virus has entered a host cell, it is called a virion — a package of viral genetic material. Virions can be passed from host to host either through direct contact or through a vector, or carrier. Inside the organism, the virus can enter a cell in various ways. Bacteriophages—bacterial viruses—attach to the cell wall surface in specific places. Once attached, enzymes make a small hole in the cell wall, and the virus injects its DNA into the cell. Other viruses, such as HIV, enter the host via endocytosis, the process by which cells take in material from the external environment. After entering the cell, the virus's genetic material begins the destructive process of causing the cell to produce new viruses.\n\nThere are three different ways genetic information contained in a viral genome can be reproduced. The form of genetic material contained in the viral capsid, the protein coat that surrounds the nucleic acid, determines the exact replication process.\n\nSome viruses have DNA which is replicated by the host cell along with the host's own DNA.\n\nThere are two different replication processes for viruses containing RNA. In the first process, the viral RNA is directly copied using an enzyme called RNA replicase. This enzyme then uses that RNA copy as a template to make hundreds of duplicates of the original RNA. A second group of RNA-containing viruses, called the retroviruses, uses the enzyme reverse transcriptase to synthesize a complementary strand of DNA so that the virus' genetic information is contained in a molecule of DNA rather than RNA. The viral DNA can then be further replicated using the resources of the host cell.\n\nBacteriophages have two cycles called the lytic cycle and lysogenic cycle. In the lytic cycle the host cell undergoes lysis (the breaking open of the cell to release viral particles), biosynthesis, maturation and finally release. In the lysogenic cycle viral replication does not immediately occur, but replication may take place some time in the future. some viruses e.g. lambda are capable of carrying out both cycles. In the lytic cycle the cell is soon destroyed and the viruses made will have to find new host. However during the lysogenic s
47238
The genetic code is the basically the set of instructions for construction and functioning of an organism. If we can understand them, and how these instructions are used, then we can possibly correct and prevent genetic diseases and defects. We can understand and possibly prevent or slow aging. We might get a handle on problems like heart disease, cancer and other diseases which appear to have a genetic component. \n\nThis is the start of what could be the greatest set of technological advances ever in the history of humanity; developing the capacity to reengineer organisms, and maybe humanity itself in useful ways. We might be able to create humans with enhanced capabilities eventually. This is potentially extremely exciting, although like all scientific and technical advances, it is fraught with potential dangers as well.
143186
Genetic engineering, genetic modification (GM), and the now-deprecated gene splicing are terms for the process of manipulating genes, usually outside the organism's normal reproductive process.\n\nIt often involves the isolation, manipulation and reintroduction of DNA into cells or model organisms, usually to express a protein. The aim is to introduce new characteristics such as making a crop resistant to a herbicide, introducing a novel trait, or producing a new protein or enzyme. Examples include the production of human insulin through the use of modified bacteria, the production of erythropoietin in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, and the production of new types of experimental mice such as the OncoMouse (cancer mouse) for research, through genetic redesign.\n\nSince a protein is specified by a segment of DNA called a gene, future versions of that protein can be modified by changing the gene's underlying DNA. One way to do this is to isolate the piece of DNA containing the gene, precisely cut the gene out, and then reintroduce (splice) the gene into a different DNA segment. Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith received the 1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their isolation of restriction endonucleases, which are able to cut DNA at specific sites. Together with ligase, which can join fragments of DNA together, restriction enzymes formed the initial basis of recombinant DNA technology.