• Question: Is it possible to create the "perfect" organism (mixing everything into one gene) and if so, how?

    Asked by thedoctor to Chris, Kay, Kerstin, Lorna, Liv on 22 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Chris Needham

      Chris Needham answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      What would be “perfect”? most organisms are ‘very good’ at doing way they do, and have evolved over millions of years to be good.

    • Photo: Kerstin Zechner

      Kerstin Zechner answered on 22 Mar 2010:

      The question is what the perfect organism is? At the end of the day you could try to put together a lot of “good” genes, but you never know if the organism would function. There is a very sensitive balance between which genes are expressed in which circumstances etc., so you’d probably end up with a bit of a mess.

    • Photo: Olivia Hibbitt

      Olivia Hibbitt answered on 23 Mar 2010:

      Hey thedoctor,

      ummm it would be cool if genetics was like baking a cake, but it’s not really! it would be very difficult to ‘create’ a perfect animal from scratch! The best bet is selective breeding to make better breeds of certain species.

    • Photo: Lorna Houlihan

      Lorna Houlihan answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      I wouldn’t think so. What’s perfect? Every biological process has it’s own aim, either to work on it’s own or depends on other biological processes – evolution has gotten rid of most unnecessary biological processes.

    • Photo: Kay Penicud

      Kay Penicud answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      Not at the moment – that would require a lot of embryo screening and manipulation which is currently considered unethical!

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