Archive for July, 2007

DNA & The Genome Project

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

What i do remember first about DNA is my beautiful Biology High School Teacher; Ms.Inayah managed to calm my wild class down with her beautiful eyes and gorgeous smile. And those bad boys made a joke still base on Biology context not playing card in the corner, neither playing throw and catch peanuts with mouth nor drawing their teacher and replace his/her body with a pig or dog body (i confess…. the last one is me). We all know that DNA inform us the genetic inheritance from generation to generation and each individual has a unique identity called DNA fingerprint. June 26th, 2000 with the announcement by former US President Bill Clinton,completion of the rough draft sequence of the Human Genome Project. He said that day they were learning the language in which God created life. Ironically… few years later Bill Clinton got trouble with this root of science. When he face  impeachment because the FBI extract the 8 years old DNA from his semen on Monica Lewinsky’s Dress. It proved that he had a sexual relationship with his intern student at white house. Once i heard that the blueprint of Human Genome Project will take 6 years to finish it. So i guess the scientists have already finished it now if they started at 2000. I dont know exactly how many billion pairs of double helix, but just imagine it… 6 years working with super computer.What is the big picture of the completion Human Genome Project? The Genome Project mapping all of the DNA in human body, thus the scientist can learn every single gen which responsible for every single aspect of human body. For example gen which make your hair black, gen which make your heart stronger, etc. For medical purpose, the Genome Project can lead to the cure of Cancer or at least prevent cancer through the observation of specific genome mutation and hopefully one day mother who has a diabetic can born a free diabetic inheritance daughter. With DNA recombinant, later on you can design your own babies…For example if you were Asian couple, you can have a green eyes and Blondie Asian babies. well…. what does it for? In general, the DNA and another genome project (mapping the spider, chimpanzee,Fly Fruit DNA,etc) share a lot of advantage with another research discipline. For military purpose, the Pentagon put a big budget on spider DNA research to make a light, stronger than steel web body armor or i think they can produce a lethal biologic weapon by recombinant some virus DNA. For archaeologist, they can define exactly the family tree of the Pharaoh mummy in Valley of the King, Egypt without tracing the Hieroglyph or another archeology method (http://anthropology.tamu.edu/arch_methods.htm) through DNA test. For criminologist, especially if you want to do a crime. Make sure not to leave your blood, hair, saliva, semen in crime area at all. Or you will be ended in jail as in CSI TV Programme. Don Juan and Casanova can irresponsible impregnated woman easily before 1960 because there was no DNA test, but now … boys… don’t try. loll. My black supervisor at Pratt who once told me that she really want to know where her ancestor came from can conduct a DNA test to reveal her hidden past because of slavery.DNA can reveal many hidden truth about history, justice, and anthropology. What a marvelous science!