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Why aren't we still able to create/alter organisms for energy and food production,
since we can easily sequence and cut and paste DNA?
since we can easily sequence and cut and paste DNA?
Because IACUC is regulating. lol.
fixed!
Why aren't we still able to create/alter organisms for energy and food production,
since we can easily sequence and cut and paste DNA?
I am not sure I understand the question. We are able to alter organisms for energy and food production, and it is done on a large scale all the time. If you are asking why biotechnology has not led to an end to hunger or to independence from fossil and other fuel sources, that is a complex question which probably depends as much upon politics, economics and social factors as on science.
Regarding QFT description of the proteome, have at it. Why would physiscists wait for an invitation if they believe it could be productive?
We do alter organisms all the time for both food and scientific research and are starting for fuel. Problems with both of them being public/political/economical opposition (some of which is legitimate) and that genetic modification is totally non-trivial. Sure you can cut and paste DNA but that's little more effective than taking a passage from one book that you really like and slapping it randomly in another and hoping the new story will take on the attributes of the older.Why aren't we still able to create/alter organisms for energy and food production,
since we can easily sequence and cut and paste DNA?
The problem with thinking about genetic engineering in this way is that it works on the assumption that analogies about genes being codes and genomes blueprints being correct. In actual fact this is not the case. Genes code for RNA that (most of the time) is converted to protein. These molecules interact with each other and others from the environment to create a metabolism that determines cell (and by extension organism) behaviour. So for the most part genes do not really map to defined traits, you can't just take the gene from one organism, put it in and expect it to work the same way. Whilst our knowledge and capability of genetic modification continues to grow and will continue to be useful (especially in the emerging field of synthetic biology) it wont be until we've started cracking the proteome, the transcriptome, the glycome and the metabolome that we could really begin radical engineering/creation of organisms for specific purposes. In fact once we have all those we may be able to seriously attempt to crack the phenome though I'm sceptical.
I'm afraid not. We can't even accurately simulate protein folding which is a very routine part of basic biochemistry (though there are interesting novel approaches to that problem). In addition there are a few other problems:Thanks for the post. Isn't it possible to simulate metabolism using computer simulation, or are the models incomplete?
Beat you to it
I haven't played the game yet but it's an excellent idea. I'd be really interested to see what other types of problem could be solved with gamified software outsourced to the crowed....though there are interesting novel approaches to that problem...
Cool, I might give it a go at some point. Is it that computers aren't powerful enough to solve the problem or that an algorithm hasn't been produced that can solve it do you know?doh!
I played around with it for a while; it's not as exciting as Skyrim, but it's neat to see how proteins work. The basic premise is that a computer can't perform the solving algorithm but human visual system/mind can.
I just remembered of another project which works by members of the public downloading some software (IIRC a screensaver) that then links together with all the other computers and works to compute folding:but you can help figure it out with this fun protein folding game!
http://fold.it/portal/Beat you to it
...though there are interesting novel approaches to that problem...
Cool, I might give it a go at some point. Is it that computers aren't powerful enough to solve the problem or that an algorithm hasn't been produced that can solve it do you know?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201200218/pdfCommercially available photovoltaic cells already possess a conversion efficiency for sunlight of more than 15%, the electric energy produced can be stored in electric batteries without major losses. This is about 150 times better than the storage of the energy from sunlight in biofuels. In addition, 80% of the energy stored in the battery is used for the propulsion of a car by an electric engine, whereas a combustion engine uses only around 20% of the energy of the gasoline for driving the wheels. Both facts together lead to the conclusion that the combination photovoltaic cells/electric battery/electric engine uses the available land 600 times better than the combination biomass/biofuels/combustion engine.