Word: molecular
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...Duarte, under Dr. Keiichi Itakura, the other led by Biochemist David Goeddell at a small South San Francisco biochemical firm, Genentech Inc. Though scientists had already produced a precursor of rat insulin with bacteria, making the finished human variety posed greater difficulties. For it consists of two distinct molecular chains, a so-called A strand and a B strand, each of which is produced separately inside the cells of the pancreas under the direction of its own characteristic gene...
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...
Some thoughtful observers saw the work as still another ominous step toward further control and manipulation of basic life processes ? comparable perhaps to the recently acquired ability of molecular biologists to rearrange and recombine genes of different creatures and even to create new life forms. These critics are not really worried about the imminence of Huxley-style baby hatcheries that produce everything from superbrainy "Alphas" to dronelike "Epsilons." After all, says one researcher, "test-tube babies are not going to be popping out like peanuts." Rather the concern centers on the far-ranging social, ethical and legal repercussions...
Walter Gilbert '53, American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology, said the insulin research may eventually lead to commercial production of several important proteins other than insulin--such as the human growth factor hormone--which are now available only in small quantities...
James D. Watson, molecular biologist and discover of the structure of DNA--Doctor of Science...