Genetic engineering is the process of manually adding new DNA to an organism. The goal is to add one or more new traits that are not already found in that organism. Examples of genetically engineered (transgenic) organisms currently on the market include plants with resistance to some insects plants that can tolerate her!icides and crops with modi"ed oil content. Understanding Genetic Engineering: Basic Biology To understand how genetic engineering works there are a few key !iology concepts that must !e understood. CONCEPT #1: What is N!? DNA is the recipe for life. DNA is a molecule found in the nucleus of e#ery cell and is made up of $ su!units represented !y the letters A T G and %. The order of these su!units in the DNA strand holds a code of information for the cell. &ust like the English alpha!et makes up words using '( letters the genetic language uses $ letters to spell out the instructions for how to make the proteins an organism will need to grow and li#e. )mall segments of DNA are called genes. Each gene holds the instructions for how to produce a single protein. This can !e compared to a recipe for making a food dish. A recipe is a set of instructions for making a single dish.An organism may ha#e thousands of genes. The set of all genes in an organism is called a genome. A genome can !e compared to a cook!ook of recipes that makes that organism what it is. E#ery cell of e#ery li#ing organism has a cook!ook. CONCEPT #": Why are #roteins i$#ortant? *roteins do the work in cells. They can !e part of structures (such as cell walls organelles etc). They can regulate reactions that take place in the cell. +r they can ser#e as en,ymes which speed- up reactions. E#erything you see in an organism is either made of proteins or the result of a protein action. CONCEPT #%: &o' is N! i$#ortant in genetic engineering? DNA is a .uni#ersal language/ meaning the genetic code means the same thing in all organisms. 0t would !e like if all cook!ooks around the world were written in a single language that e#eryone knew. This characteristic is critical to the success of genetic engineering. 1hen a gene for a desira!le trait is taken from one organism and inserted into another it gi#es the .recipient/ organism the a!ility to express that same trait. &o' is genetic engineering done? Genetic engineering also called transformation works !y physically remo#ing a gene from one organism and inserting it into another gi#ing it the a!ility to express the trait encoded !y that gene. 0t is like taking a single recipe out of a cook!ook and placing it into another cook!ook. The #rocess: Once a goal is in $ind( 2) 3irst "nd an organism that naturally contains the desired trait. ') The DNA is extracted from that organism. This is like taking out the entire cook!ook. 4) The one desired gene (recipe) must !e located and copied from thousands of genes that were extracted. This is called gene cloning. $) The gene may !e modi"ed slightly to work in a more desira!le way once inside the recipient organism. 5) The new gene(s) called a transgene is deli#ered into cells of the recipient organism. This is called transformation. The most common transformation techni6ue uses a !acteria that naturally genetically engineer plants with its own DNA. The transgene is inserted into the !acteria which then deli#ers it into cells of the organism !eing engineered. Another techni6ue called the gene gun method shoots microscopic gold particles coated with copies of the transgene into cells of the recipient organism. 1ith either techni6ue genetic engineers ha#e no control o#er where or if the transgene inserts into the genome. As a result it takes hundreds of attempts to achie#e 7ust a few transgenic organisms. () +nce a transgenic organism has !een created traditional !reeding is used to impro#e the characteristics of the "nal product. )o genetic engineering does not eliminate the need for traditional !reeding. 0t is simply a way to add new traits to the pool.