Genetic Engineer Tells Doctors How It's Done |
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Genetic engineer tells
doctors how it's done
By SALLY REESE
Times Medical Writer
An overview of what's happening in
genetic engineering was given here
Wednesday by one of the scientists
who made it possible.
In a lecture at LSU Medical Center,
Dr. Hamilton 0. Smith, a Nobel Prize-winner
for his contribution to recom-binant
DNA technology, explained
how scientists snip, splice and rear-range
genetic material and make bac-teria
manufacture life-saving human
substances.
Smith shared the Nobel Prize in
1978 for research in enzymes tha.t
make gene splicing possible.
The Johns Hopkins University
molecular biologist and geneticist
said he believes the day will come
when genes will be inserted directly
into humans, but not soon. Though a
self-styled "optimist who thinks we
can replace a defective cell with a
clone," he indicated that such a de-velopment
is farther out on the re-search
horizon.
Meanwhile, bacteria are the
"middle-men" for manufacturing hu-man
proteins, such as insulin, interfon
and growth hormones, for therapeutic
purposes. Smith noted Eli Lilly's work
in cultivating human insulin in bac-terial
cultures, a feat made possible
by recombinant DNA techniques and
giving rise to hopes that the hormone
will be on the market in unlimited
supply within a few years.
In his talk here, Smith explained
how scientists can engineer human
genes to work in a bacterial cell —
how they can force bacteria to manu-facture
human proteins in addition to
their own.
It's done by extracting bits of DNA
(the substance of which the genes are
made) from human cells. Then with
DNA-cutting enzymes, these genes
can be inserted into strands of bac-terial
DNA and carried piggyback
into the bacteria. With a human gene
in the blueprint, the bacteria simply
read it along with the rest of their
DNA. Such bacterial "factories" will
churn out molecule after molecule of
human protein.
In genetic engineering, he said, "we
Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Ham-ilton
O. Smith, at LSU Medi-cal
Center lecture.
are usually trying to scale up prod-uction
of a given protein."
Object Description
| Title | Genetic Engineer Tells Doctors How It's Done |
| Creator |
Reese, Sally |
| Subject |
Smith, Hamilton O. Genetics Louisiana State University Medical Center (Shreveport, La.) |
| Notes | photo of Hamilton O. Smith |
| Publisher |
Shreveport Times |
| Date | 1982-04-29 |
| Identifier | See reference URL on the navigation bar. |
| Source | Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport Medical Library (http://lib.sh.lsuhsc.edu) |
| Language | en |
| Relation | http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/cdm4/index_LSUHSCS_NPC.php?CISOROOT=/LSUHSCS_NPC |
| Coverage-Spatial | Shreveport (Caddo, La.) |
| Rights | Physical rights are retained by Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport. Copyright is retained in accordance with U.S. copyright laws. |
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