| A | B |
|---|
| bacteriophage | a virus that attacks bacteria |
| biotechnology | the field that involves applying tools to the genome of an organism |
| recombinant DNA | the resulting DNA when DNA from two (or more) organisms are combined |
| genetic engineering | modifying nucleic acids, either pieces of DNA or RNA, or entire genomes |
| restriction enzymes | a type of bacterial protein that cut foreign DNA and RNA into smaller pieces |
| palindrome | a sequence of DNA that reads the same forward as backward as long as it's read from the 5' ends |
| gel electrophoresis | a process that separates fragments of DNA by size |
| Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) | a process that increases tiny amounts of DNA into larger quantities |
| denaturing | a process of separating two strands of DNA |
| Taq | an enzyme used in the PCR process |
| Sanger method | a process that allows small fragments of DNA to be sequenced |
| RFLP | a process also known as DNA fingerprinting to profile an individual |
| Short tandem repeat (STR) | a process that profiles individuals based on the number of base repeats between genes |
| vector | a particle or organism that transfers something from one organism to another |
| plasmid | a small, circular piece of DNA often found in bacteria |
| transgenic | an organism that has genetic material from another type of organism |
| cloning | making a copy of a piece of DNA, a gene, a genome, or an entire individual |
| reproductive cloning | using adult cells from an adult individual to make a new individual |
| therapeutic cloning | using adult cells to produce mature adult cells |
| stem cell | an undifferentiated cell that can mature into many different types of cells |
| embryonic stem cell | an undifferentiated cell found in an embryo |
| adult stem cell | adult cells that can be stimulated to become mature adult cells |
| de-differentiation | a process that takes mature adult cells that are not stem cells and reprograms them to become stem cells |
| Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) | stem cells produced by de-differentiating adult cells into stem cells that can be differentiated into a variety of other cells |
| insulin | the first medicine produced by transgenic bacteria in the 1970s |
| Dolly | the name of the first mammal produced by cloning in 1996 |
| biopharming | the practice of developing transgenic animals that have higher nutritional value |
| gene therapy | altering genes in order to treat or stop disease |
| ex vivo gene therapy | extracting a patient's cells, modifying them, and returning them to the patient |
| in vivo gene therapy | preparing genetic material and then introducing the material to a patient |
| genomics | the field that studies sequences of nucleotides in DNA as well as their structure, function, and location |
| comparative genomics | the study of the similarities and differences between genomes of various organisms |
| functional genomics | the study of the function of genes, control, and the interaction between the various parts of the genome |
| proteomics | the study of proteins produced in an organism |
| bioinformatics | the study of how to manage and analyze large sets of data |
| Cas9 | a bacterial enzyme that hitches a ride on guide RNA used in the CRISPR method |
| CRISPR | a method used to insert a gene or edit a gene in a targeted area |
| guide RNA | RNA used in CRISPR that is designed to attach to a targeted sequence of DNA |
| genetically modified organisms (GMO) | a common term that is used among the public that scientists refer to as transgenic organisms |
