Preetham

=__biography: __= Hello my name is preetham and i live in Natick, Massachusetts. I'am a rising junior at Natick High school. I found this camp when i was looking for ways to improve my knowledge of biology. I took biology in freshman year but after the year was over I realized I wanted to pursue biology. During my free time I play sports and hangout with friends.  __Research Project: __ Genetic code, as we know it, is the set of rules by which information is stored within genetic material and eventually is translated into proteins. Genetic code consists of 64 triplets or codon, and each codon encodes for 20 Amino Acid. Genetic code can be written /expressed with RNA codons or DNA codons. The research of understanding the genetic code was a difficult task itself, and now 50 years later scientists are already to rewrite and edit the genetic code of living things.

 Editing DNA has great promise, but the technology needed to edit it is taking a long time to develop in a way that it will aid people in their research. This doesn't mean that there aren't any useful technologies, currently there are genome editing tools that make it easier to rewrite it. Major strides have been made in rewriting the genome of living bacteria. The way they edited the genome was that they replaced one stop codon with a different stop codon. Basically, people at MIT and Harvard had the stop codon TAG in their sight; the TAG stop codon is the rarest in a E. coli bacteria’s genome (which made it a prime target for editing its genome). What researchers did was that they replaced all the 314 TAG codons with TAA codons (another stop codon). Researchers first used a MAGE, which allowed them to make 32 strains of E. coli that had 10 TAG codons replaced. When combined, the strains end up in one and all 314 edits have occurred. Then researchers used a CAGE, which allows them to control a occurring process that bacteria use to exchange genetic material. After four strains were created, researchers were able to track how many substitutions there were. Ever since researchers were able to edit E.coli bacteria, the possibility of replacing every specific codon is now a reality. Eventually as this area of study progress’s researcher’s want to remove the cell that reads a TAG codon so they can use that part for something else. Ideally scientists would like to do a “plug-and-play” situation in which they can be flexible in the way the design certain types of cells.

Altering the Genetic code can unlock new doors in the area of synthetic biology and Genetics. By altering Bacteria’s Genome, we as scientists can use the bacteria for good purposes. For example, we can engineer bacteria that are immune to certain types of viruses. The only risk that researchers face is the likely hood of altered bacteria to behave abnormally, even though it’s not been the case. An altercation in the genome can also lead to a “genetic firewall”, which would impede engineered bacteria to spread genes to natural genes. Along with these risks and numerous benefits come along, It’s a small risk that people take just to research and study how rewriting the genome can help. There is a long way to go before we can fully understand the concept of editing the genome, but when we do biology itself will revolutionize. sources: [] []