Word: dna
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Halloween night, while space warriors pranced outside, researchers began work, without fanfare, in the Harvard special containment laboratory for recombinant DNA research. The new facility, tucked away on the fourth floor of the Biological Laboratories, is subject to some of the most elaborate safety requirements specified by government DNA research guidelines. The lab, known as a P-3 facility because it requires a high level of physical containment, now houses two Harvard research teams. Behind the reinforced glass doors, entered with a special magnetic identification card, the scientists are experimenting with the genetic code. At the same time, debate continues...
...been the production of human insulin by E. coli bacteria cells. This work, if successful, would provide an almost unlimited source of natural human insulin for diabetics at a low price, a very tangible medical benefit which would go far towards convincing the public of the benefits of recombinant DNA research...
...central problem is finding a way to induce the bacterial cells to "express" the inserted foreign insulin genes. Researchers have to trick the cell into "reading" the added DNA along with the rest of its genes in order to translate its coded instructions for making insulin. And once the insulin is synthesized, the stage at which Gilbert's team is near, the researchers must smuggle the insulin safely out of the cell and isolate it in high quantity...
...Gilbert says that there is something less than total cooperation between the groups attacking the insulin problem. While techniques are traded freely and he has communicated quite a bit with the artificial DNA group, he has been out of touch with the other California group which is employing an approach like...
...time to come. Scientists have not yet fully determined the structure of the interferon molecule and thus cannot bring down the cost by synthesizing it. Nor have they isolated the gene that orders interferon production in the cell. Once that gene is determined, Gutterman says, the technique of recombinant DNA could be used to insert it into a laboratory strain of E. coli bacteria, which would then multiply and produce interferon inexpensively and in large quantities...