Stardate 20010923.0851 (On Screen): Genetic engineering has only just begun, and already they've created some pretty astounding things. Work to create certain important proteins in cattle, goat and sheep milk has been around for a long time, but now they're also working to use hog semen and chicken egg-white production as well. The reason these things are possible is that they don't actually have to locate all the genes involved in producing these substances. What they have to do is to find
any one and figure out what its activation sequence is, which will always be contiguous with the gene itself. Once they know that, then if they can synthesize or borrow a gene for something they want to produce, by placing that same activation sequence on it then it will be produced at the same time as the other substance from which the activation sequence was deduced. The new gene can be placed anywhere in the genome at all (or in a plasmid) and it will work correctly. It doesn't have to be near the original, because the genome is content-addressed and not location-addressed.
One of the most amazing natural substances is spider's silk. It is enormously strong and has many other marvelous properties, and now it is being synthesized in goat's milk. Given what kinds of things we've done with plastics over the last fifty years (it is no exaggeration to say that they've completely changed our lives) the possibilities inherent in using some of the superb natural substances like spider's silk are boundless, not just in medicine but in many other places.
The miracles are there, waiting for us. And they're languishing because of superstition and paranoia. (discuss)
