Genetic Engineering | Genetics | Biology | Don't Memorise

POMATO Doesn't this term sound a little weird? You might be wondering, is it a tomato or a potato plant? It's actually both! Yes, you heard me right! In this single plant, the tomatoes grow above the ground, while the potatoes grow below the ground level. And how is this made possible? It can be done by a process called grafting. In this, the stems of both the tomato and the potato plants are chosen and then joined together by tying them. This is an example of plant engineering. On the similar lines, when we cut and join genetic material, the process is known as genetic engineering. It's one of the principles of biotechnology. Now let's explore more about these principles in detail. Most of the principles of biotechnology are based on two engineering branches. That is, genetic engineering and chemical engineering. Genetic engineering is the branch which deals with the modification of the genetic material of an organism. And which genetic materials are we referring to? We know that it's the DNA which is the genetic material for most of the organisms. And what about the remaining ones? Well, in them it's the RNA which acts as the genetic material. Just like in the case of some viruses. So genetic engineering deals with the manipulation of genetic material. Moving ahead with the next principle, which is chemical engineering. The name itself suggests that the principle revolves around the use of chemicals for the growth and the maintenance of cell cultures. For this, the desired eukaryotic or microbial cell cultures are stored in a contamination-free zone. Further, these cell cultures are used for the production of vaccines, antibodies, enzymes and various other useful products. We will learn about chemical engineering in the upcoming videos. For now, let's just discuss in detail about genetic engineering. Did you know that the first ever genetic modification was done in a bacterium? That's right! And later on, these modifications were applied to animal as well as plant cells. The genetic modification can be done either by adding something new to the existing genetic material, or it can also be done by deleting something from the existing genetic material. The DNA obtained after modification is known as recombinant DNA. Technically, genetic engineering can be done in many ways. Recombinant DNA is one way to pursue it. When genetic engineering is applied to modify organisms, they are known as genetically modified organisms, abbreviated as GMOs. And what organisms can be modified with this technique? Almost all living organisms can be modified with the help of genetic engineering. What kind of applications does this serve? Modifications in organisms can give rise to beneficial products. Consider plants for example. With the help of genetic engineering, we can produce robust crops, pest-resistant varieties and also high-yielding varieties of many crops. This was in short, about one way in which genetic engineering can be carried out. The other way to perform genetic engineering is by making copies of the genetic material. This is also known as gene cloning. In simple words, gene cloning can be defined as the process of making an exact duplicate of the genetic material. But why do we need a duplicate of the genetic material? Let's consider an example to understand this concept. Imagine there is a new product launched by a company in the market. This has some really cool and amazing features which will be of great use to all. Now is it fine if the company manufactures just one piece? Of course not! There will be so many people who will want to buy it. For this, there will be multiple copies of the same product, manufactured on a large scale to suffice the demands. This just means that making exact copies of the original product is useful in several ways, isn't it? This same logic applies for genes as well. A few genes which code for certain extreme important proteins or even the newly modified genes can be copied several times. This process of making exact copies of genes is called gene cloning. And just as in this case, here as well, clones or copies of genes serve many important applications. This entire process of making copies of the genetic material falls under the umbrella of genetic engineering. So in this video, we learnt about the basics of genetic engineering. To learn more, do watch our upcoming videos. Till then, do subscribe to our channel to get notified.