Word: coli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...experimentation is potentially hazardous largely because of its unpredictability; an experiment could result in bacteria which produce insulin or the creation of new strains of dangerous bacteria that resist antibiotics. Often, the DNA is inserted into the E. coli bacteria, which live in the human gut, but if these hybrid organism were to escape from the laboratory, they could enter the human body and resist its normal immunological defenses. To their credit, scientists engaged in this research were the first to sound the alarm in the early '70s. Lear traces the chain of events that led to regulation...
...those applications - the recombinant DNA technique - has begun to fulfill its widely her alded promise. By inserting genes into the DNA of a laboratory strain of the common intestinal bacterium E. coli, re searchers have induced the little bug to produce somatostatin, a mammalian brain hormone. Last month the bacterium manufactured synthetic human insulin, raising hopes that the hormone vital to the well-being of the world's diabetics may some day soon be available in virtually unlimited supply...
With a little help from E. coli...
Synthesizing copies of these genes, or segments of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), was difficult enough. But much harder was the job of getting the genetic instructions inside the potential bacterial factory, a weakened lab strain of the intestinal microbe Escherichia coli. The scientists resorted to a little molecular chicanery. Using their new gene-splicing or recombinant DNA techniques, they hitched their two synthetic insulin genes individually to one of the bacterium's own genes. Then they inserted both the synthetic and the natural material into fresh E. coli. As a result, E. coli's DNA-reading machinery was unable...
Those benefits were dramatically demonstrated last fall when California scientists inserted into the DNA of E. coli bacteria synthesized copies of a gene that orders the production of somatostatin, a vital brain hormone in mammals. Researchers who first isolated that hormone needed nearly half a million sheep brains to produce 5 mg (.00018 oz.) of the substance. But the California scientists used only about 8 liters (2 gal.) of a culture containing their re-engineered bacteria to obtain the same amount...