From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Sep 09 1999 - 22:58:57 MDT
On Thu, 9 Sep 1999 CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
> I said:
>
> > They have engineered Drosophila with legs growing out of the head
> > and I believe with extra sets of wings. It simply involves adding
> > putting a gene that makes and "X" and under the regulation of
> > the "Y" region control element, i.e.
> > if (I_Am_In_Region_Y)
> > Synthesize_Collection_Of_Cells_for_X();
>
> Technically:
>
> They didn't engineer Antennapedia or Bithorax, they found them. We probably
> could engineer them now; alterations to developmental genes are pretty routine
> for the major experimental animals. Also, those particular mutations are to
> region-identifying genes.
I checked this and since I can't find a specific reference to engineering
such "add-ons", and can find references to the mutants (as far back as 1949),
I stand corrected.
I would comment, that our engineering is getting pretty specific, e.g.
"Mice lacking all conventional MHC class II genes", PNAS 96:10338-10343.
The next step in this process is - "enginerring humanized mouse models
of human MHC-II-associated autoimmune disorders" (perhaps including
diabetes, rhumatoid arthritis, etc.).
>
> > If it looks like something you already grow, you could probably assemble
> > them in a fairly ad hoc fasion.
>
> Yes, but it gets harder away from pet organisms. Details matter; a lot of
> these things are concentration-dependent and you have to get the
> concentrations right. It's a real problem for "engineering" people -
> in addition to ethical issues about lack of choice there's a very high
> chance that you'd make a few goofs fine-tuning the process and that's
> *really* unacceptable.
Why? If we can do it on adults with informed consent, I can open
"Robert's Spare Body Parts For U" and the spares can go up for grabs
on eBay! You get your 5-fingered hands, your 4-fingered hands, your
2-thumbed hands, the possibilities are simply endless.
[grin]
Robert
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