Word: dna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With the structure of DNA so revealed, medical scientists began as never before to focus their attention on the internal functioning of the cell and the myriad chemical interactions that are the essence of the activities of all living things. The new field of study soon established itself as a distinct scientific specialty, known as molecular biology, and grew so rapidly that some of the brightest young minds in the Western world began flocking to its bustling labs and classrooms...
...scientists in the '70s had begun working on a method called recombinant DNA technology, in which they replicated specific genes by placing them in host cells grown in the laboratory. In 1983 scientists at the biotechnology company Amgen isolated the specific bit of DNA that carried the code for producing erythropoietin. They placed the gene in a minuscule bacterial structure called a plasmid, inserted the plasmid into the ovary of a hamster and began to produce synthetic erythropoietin. In 1989 the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of recombinant human erythropoietin under the name Epoetin alfa. The process...
Epoetin alfa is only one among many designer-fashioned molecules that have been used both to treat bodily deficiencies and to influence certain cellular processes. Each year since 1982, when insulin became the first DNA-based drug to be approved by the fda, the list has steadily lengthened. Sales of drugs produced by the manipulation of DNA currently run in the billions of dollars...
...chats with the young mother, the doctor flicks a cotton swab into the mouth of her infant son, collecting a small sample of mucus from inside his cheek. In the back room of his office, he inserts the sample into a machine, which extracts DNA from the mucus cells and compares it with the genetic material on a dime-size chip. Minutes later, a computer printer begins to spit out a list of the infant's genes. Fortunately, all but a few of the genes are labeled "normal." It is those few that the doctor discusses as he explains...
That kind of optimism is endemic among the legions of medical researchers now engaged in the most momentous technological effort since the Manhattan atom-bomb project: decoding the messages contained in human DNA. Aided largely by grants from the federally funded Human Genome Project, they are striving toward the major goal of mapping the genome and identifying all its estimated 50,000 to 100,000 genes by the year...