Without it, insects aren’t capable of growing up or reproducing. It is analogous, in some ways, to testosterone and estrogen in humans. Ecdysone is a critical hormone for maturation and reproduction in every species of insect. Yamanaka has spent the last several years studying membrane transporters responsible for incorporating a steroid hormone called ecdysone into insect cells. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Naoki Yamanaka from the Department of Entomology and the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology at the University of California is harnessing the power of genetics to develop new methods for wiping disease-bearing mosquitos from the face of the Earth. Both in movies and in real-world labs, much of the thinking around the power of DNA hinges on saving endangered species and even bringing extinct species back from the dead, but the inverse is also possible. That happened, in no small part, because of Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel Jurassic Park, and the subsequent film franchise which is still going strong today. In the 1990s, the field had progressed to the point that scientists endeavored to sequence the first genomes, including the human genome, and DNA fever captured the public imagination. It would be decades before biologists realized the significance of the discovery and nearly a century before Watson and Crick described the double helix structure. The discovery of DNA in 1869 went largely unnoticed by the scientific community.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |