What are the advantages of using genetic engineering?
Scientist can take useful genes from microorganisms, plants, and animal cells and transfer them to microorganisms such as yeast and bacteria that are easy to grow in large quantities. Products that once were available only in small amounts from an animal or plant are then available in large quantities from rapidly-growing microbes. One example is the use of genetically engineered bacteria to produce human insulin for treating diabetes. The hormone insulin was originally obtained from pancreas of slaughtered animals. This made insulin expensive and not readily available. Now, genetically engineered human insulin can be mass produced through the use of synthetic genes. Genetic engineering also allows desirable genes from one plant, animal or microorganism to be incorporated into an unrelated species. Thus, a wider range of traits is now made available to the plant or animal breeder. Direct manipulation of DNA allows traits to be incorporated more quickly and more reliably into target spe
