Seriously, you can run as fast as Usain Bolt!
Not joking!
Scientists involved in the Encode Project have discovered that much of the DNA that was once thought to be largely junk, is really full of genetic switches that determine which gene must be switched on to make a muscle, skin or nerve cell. In other words, the switches largely determine what's going on in our body.
Scientists now believe that diseases are not caused by defective genes as by defective switching. For example, they are saying that a liver cell may be tripped to stop the absorption of blood sugar thereby causing diabetes and so on.
They are now saying that the difference between a healthy person and one who is not may be down to gene switching and that it seems likely that many of the differences between one person and another say, between Bolt and us, may be similarly due to different patterns of gene switching.
Ergo, the kind of gene switching medicine that will cure diseases may be turned to therapies to make us into Usain Bolt terrors!
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Kluang's Little Bangsar
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Kamini's Indian Wedding - Click To Visit
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I read a great article in National Geographic magazine of February 2009 concerning Darwin, evolution and how certain genes are switched on which makes us different to each other and to animals. The genetic make-up is all the same but for how activated or deactivated particular genes are.
ReplyDeleteThe jury is still out there, Duncan, but fascinating discovery. I have not read that issue of National Geographic, however.
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