Research Genome Sequence Information example essay topic

A recent scientific breakthrough, creating a genetic map for cattle is now completed. This finished map is now allowing for researchers to work with reducing animal disease and improving the nutrition of beef and dairy products. This information was, according to the New York Times, along with other sources, a result of a 53 million-dollar international project to sequence the genome of different breeds of cattle. When the program was launched in December 2003, the US Department of Agriculture contributed 11 million dollars. Cattle have about the same amount of base pairs, close to three billion, as humans and the project was focused on documenting them, which they did successfully. They have completed one breed, the Hereford, with six other breeds to come.

The draft is now available globally on a public database. Biomedical and agricultural researchers will have access to this information and in return, will allow them to study for ways to further improve the nutrition and quality of beef products. They hope the information will allow them to distinctively track the genetic makeup of the animal to produce more disease-resistant livestock. They also hope to be able to reduce the amount of antibiotics they give the cattle. This is quite the breakthrough for human genome sequencing, as it will help fill in some holes on the Human Genome Project, and help treat human diseases. Researchers continue to sequence and compare to those that have already been sequenced, such as humans.

Results of the comparing of the bovine genome sequence to human genome will be available in the next several months. Experts and researchers say that cattle are an excellent animal for humans to use for better understanding of human health. They say the cow provides for a worthy model because of the great amount of researching that has gone on with respect to multi-genic physiological traits. Since they have co-evolved with humans, they accurately represent species with various selected phenotypes, and have strong medical communities to support and research genome sequence information. During the time in which cattle were evolving with man, they have gone under intense selection pressures for their different phenotypes. Two very distinct phenotypes are: milk production, or in other parts of the world, pulling plows or living in tropical environments and tolerating certain pathogens.

Since cattle have these distinct phenotypes, they are very relevant to human health research. Past research from cows have led us to the better understanding of several reproductive and pituitary hormones. Bovine insulin was also used for several decades to treat human diabetes. Other more recent research includes using bovine embryos to experiment with human reproductive techniques such as super ovulation, oocyte culturing, in-vert o fertilization, and embryo maturation, freezing, and transfer. Since the controversy over stem cell research in farm animals is much lower than that of human stem cell research, they are currently being used to help further develop human stem cell research. The completion of the genetic map for cattle can also help understand human obesity by researching and comparing genetic differences in fat dispositions of different organs.

The bovine model has already shown us that hormones originally thought only to affect reproduction, also have an impact on growth, muscle development, and diseases not associated with reproduction, which could also include obesity. A team at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas is responsible for the research. The team was led by Richard Gibbs, who has past experience in working with the human genetic code, and also that of a Norwegian brown rat.