Gene Genius
What is the first commercial GMO crop?
Flavr Savr tomato
What are the three primary strategies employed in gene therapy?
Gene replacement, Gene silencing, and Gene editing
What are stem cells?
They are undifferentiated cells capable of self-renewal and differentiation into specialized cell types.
Flavr Savr tomato was developed by the Californian biotech company Calgene and went on sale in May 1984.
Bluff; 1994
What is the scientific consensus as articulated by the World Health Organization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and other major scientific bodies?
GMO foods currently available for consumption are safe to eat and do not pose greater health risks than their conventional counterparts.
What are the three key techniques in GMO?
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, Biolistics, and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing
What highlighted the urgency of establishing robust international governance frameworks?
The 2018 birth of gene-edited babies in China by He Jiankui
What is the most established stem cell therapy used to treat blood cancers, autoimmune diseases, and inherited blood disorders?
Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
The human body contains roughly 30 to 37 trillion cells, and every single one (including mature red blood cells) carries a complete genetic instruction manual.
Bluff; excluding mature RBCs
What type of cancer did Kymriah and Yescarta achieve complete remission for according to June et al., 2018?
Blood cancer
Concerns in GMO include the development of herbicide-resistant ___?
Superweeds
What is the most efficient delivery vehicle that is also a modified virus stripped of its disease-causing capacity?
Viral vectors
Why is the use of embryonic stem cells an ethical controversy?
Due to the destruction of human embryos.
In 2019, astronauts on the International Space Station tested CRISPR in microgravity to see how space radiation damages DNA and how cells repair it.
Fact
According to Russell et al., 2017, Luxturna is for a rare form of inherited retinal dystrophy caused by mutations in what gene?
RPE65 gene
The politics of GMOs intersects with debates about corporate power, particularly the dominance of which two companies?
Bayer-Monsanto and Corteva in the seed market
What is the one-time gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)?
Zolgensma
_____ are being trialed to treat age-related muscular degeneration.
iPSC-derived RPE cells
The "Bt" in Bt corn and other pest-resistant crops is not a chemical; it is the abbreviation for Bacillus thuringiensis, the natural soil bacterium whose DNA helps the plants defend themselves against insects.
Fact
Based on the European Food Safety Authority in 2022, what approach does the European Union require for each GM crop?
Case-by-case approval and mandatory labeling of all GM food products.
When was GMO Canola developed and what was it modified for?
1990s, for herbicide tolerance, such as resistance to glyphosate
What is insertional mutagenesis?
The introduced gene disrupts the function of an existing gene
Stem cell therapies are in trials for ____, ____, ____, and ____.
Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, and spinal cord injuries.
Ian Wilmut led the team that created Dolly the Sheep in 1996, which is the first mammal ever cloned from an embryonic stem cell.
Bluff; adult somatic cell
Fill in the blank: The iPSC revolution has provided a path that partially circumvents these concerns, though debates about ____, ____, and ____ persist (Hyun, 2010).
Commercialization, Equitable Access, and the Conduct of Clinical Trials