Bloodbane Posted March 18, 2016 Share Posted March 18, 2016 Is cross species genetics possible, like splicing animal dna into human dna? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xalatan Posted March 18, 2016 Share Posted March 18, 2016 Yes, recombinant DNA technology is in place for different clinical applications. For example, recombinant human insulin is synthesised by inserting the human insulin gene into E. coli, which produces insulin for human use. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elite Engineer Posted March 19, 2016 Share Posted March 19, 2016 Yea, this has been a longtime practice..like XalatN said, beginning with E.coli making insulin in the mid 1970's. The DNA (for the most part) is all the same. Some species of bacteria have really strong, continuous promoters that can be used for consistent protein synthesis. ~EE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodbane Posted March 21, 2016 Author Share Posted March 21, 2016 What about animal dna? like using lizard dna to regrow limbs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 What about animal dna? like using lizard dna to regrow limbs? Iirc, we have an embryonic regeneration that we lose before we're born. There is research ongoing that attempts to isolate the mechanism so we might apply it to amputations some day. The problem is, we gave up regeneration for faster-acting scar-tissue long ago. Once we left the safety of the trees in our evolution, we needed a way to quickly stop blood loss and promote healing. Cell regeneration like salamanders (not all lizards) and most fish have requires them to find a safe, quiet place and remain stress-free and dormant during the regeneration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 (edited) What about animal dna? like using lizard dna to regrow limbs? Also, there isn't "a gene for this" that you could just transplant. It is a whole mechanism that is distributed across large numbers of genes and how they are expressed. But people are working on this. There are attempts to get nerve cells to regrow. And this recent story about a new treatment for cataracts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35762713 OK, not growing a new hand, but these small scale things may be the best we can ever do. Edited March 21, 2016 by Strange Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xalatan Posted March 22, 2016 Share Posted March 22, 2016 I'm not an expert on Regenerative medicine but my understanding is the field is based around the concept of the inducible pleuripotent cell, ie. Activating dormant pathways in differentiated somatic cells that rekindles its stem potential. Lizard DNA wouldn't necessarily achieve the same because it is the epigenetic regulation of the preexisting pleuripotent genes like OCT4 and Sox2 that induces embryonic regeneration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodbane Posted March 22, 2016 Author Share Posted March 22, 2016 Ok thank you, do you think eventually we'll be able to regrow whole limbs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted March 22, 2016 Share Posted March 22, 2016 Ok thank you, do you think eventually we'll be able to regrow whole limbs? Yes. It's a mechanism that has lots of potential in medicine, especially now that we're at a point in our evolution where fight or flight is not as strong a factor in our survival. There's also cloning, so you may be able to grow a new arm using your own tissue, then have it attached. This may be a better way to control the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted March 22, 2016 Share Posted March 22, 2016 There are already some impressive advances in this area: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14047670 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_engineering Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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