1. Michael Robbins
12/10/2013
Lesson: Genetic Engineering
1) Major conceptGenetic Engineering and its application.
2) Lesson essential question
BIO.2.4.1
Explain how genetic engineering has impacted the fields of medicine, forensics and agriculture.
(DNA finger printing was already discussed)
3) Activating strategy
See points 1-3 below in Activity section.
4) Key Vocabulary
Genetic engineering, Cloning, Transform, Vector
Graphic Organizer Used
Students will be expected to take notes during the non-video watching portions of the class. The
notes should not be too cumbersome and will involve drawing pictures of the cloning process.
Thus, I feel that the notes for this lesson are better with a blank sheet of paper and not with a
graphic organizer.
5) Activities
This lesson will be done as a discussion with multimedia using active inspire to present videos, graphics
and key points.
Slide
1. Students will be numbered from one to three because there is a one in three chance that they
have the warrior version of the MAO gene. If they have a “3” they are going to pretend that they
have the gene.
2. Students will watch a NOVA excerpt on the warrior gene (5 min, 30 sec). Briefly discuss the
video and then ask: How do you know if you have the warrior allele?
Here students should be guided to DNA sequencing or analyzing a DNA sequence. Ask students
how can you sequence a gene? The point of this question is not for a student to get the right
answer. It is to show them how hard the problem is (discussed next).
3. State that its ok if they didn’t think of the answer because the scientist that they have learned
about didn’t have a clue about it either. They were thrilled with what they accomplished. By the
mid-1960s they discovered the central dogma of biology (DNA->RNA->Protein) and they were
happy. They may have considered the secret of life solved and many decided to move onto
studying the brain. Perhaps they thought that because they knew that with the central dogma,
people would easily learn how to identify the genes that gave rise to proteins. Perhaps it was
because the tools in molecular biology that were needed to identify single genes were not
invented yet.

2. 4. Reveal that no scientist could chemically purify a gene because all genes are chemically similar.
Then state: “Wait we purified strawberry DNA in class.” Guide students to the realization that
the strawberry DNA was all stuck together as one big molecule and that individual genes were
not purified.
5. Here “Cloning” is revealed as the tool that is used to purify DNA. But it is unlike any other
chemical purification procedure because it uses DNA’s ability to replicate itself. The separation is
not done chemically based on the chemical makeup of the genes; it is done based on the
sequence of nucleotides in the DNA molecule. Next discuss how much separation is needed by
cloning based on the respective sizes of the human genome (3 billion base pairs), a typical
human gene (30 thousand base pairs) and a typical mutation (1 base pair).
6. On this slide, draw the process of how to clone a gene.
1. Cut DNA with Restriction Enzymes. Restriction enzymes were mentioned in previous class.
2. Paste DNA into vector. One vector is a plasmid inside of a bacterium. Use student-made
model of a bacterium. Illustrate how DNA is inserted into plasmid.
3. Transform a vector containing the inserted DNA (transform can be thought of as transfer)
back into host bacteria.
4. Select transformed colonies on petri dish. As a part of this step ask students if they know why
bacteria have plasmids. Reveal that the answer is that they contain antibiotic resistance genes
that they use to fend off fungi that make antibiotics. Ask what must be added to the petri dish
to make sure only the transformed colonies survive?
7. On this slide, reveal that the human insulin gene can be expressed in bacteria so that we can
harvest insulin protein in great amounts from bacteria. But in order to get insulin, we have a
problem, our bacteria colonies each contain a piece of the genome that are around the size of
one gene. Only one or a few colonies have the insulin gene. How do we know which colony
contains the insulin gene? This IS a rhetorical question. Reveal the answer by removing the box.
The answer is to detect the correct colony using a short radioactive DNA probe. The strands
from the DNA probe bind with the DNA contained in the bacteria plasmid. Next you can culture
that colony to get as much insulin as you desire.
I will skip the nextpoint, especially for block 4, but if I am asked the procedure follows: Since,
DNA sequencing wasn’t invented back then so how did early scientist have the DNA sequences
used to detect insulin? Reveal that they did still know how to sequence proteins by a method
Fredrick Sanger invented in the 1950s. Mention that Fredrick Sanger past away just last month
and lived to be 95 years old. At this time scientists also knew which transfer RNA bound which
amino acids and that DNA encodes mRNA. So they used ~20 nucleotide long mixtures of possible
DNA sequences to hybridize to the DNA from the bacterial colonies.
8. On the next slide, I will discuss how Sanger also invented a method for DNA sequencing and thus
won the Nobel Prize twice. To do this I will use a pacman analogy. Pacman is DNA polymerase
and ghosts represent the termination nucleotides.
9. This slide is a Nova video excerpt showing modern DNA sequencing (2 minutes).
10. I will show a Nova video excerpt that discusses gene chips (microarrays used for genotyping) (1
min 38 sec). I will then remind them about the warrior allele and re-ask the video’s question as
to if they would like to be genotyped.

3. 11. The brief discussion will pave the way for the Nova excerpt on actionable genes (1 minute and
50 seconds).
12. We get to watch a Nova excerpt on how whole genome sequencing save a boy with a rare
genetic disorder (1 minute and 30 seconds).
13. We get to see how sequencing has led to a drug that corrects a defective protein that causes
cystic fibrosis in 4% of patients that carry a specific mutation. We can see how the drug works
and how hard it has been to develop it and how expensive it is right now.
14. I will show a video about Emily Whitehead who is a girl from Phillipsburg who is famous for
undergoing a treatment that cured her leukemia (6 minutes and 44 seconds). This video is about
how they genetically modified her own T-cells to attack her B-cells (some of which had cancer).
Background on video: To transform her T-cells they used a genetically modified HIV virus that no
longer can cause AIDS. Emily also had her cancer cells in her body sequenced and they
discovered that one of her proteins was expressed at levels that were too high. It so happened
that an arthritis drug already existed that lowered the levels of this protein. This drug was given
to her based on her sequence results and she drastically improved after taking it.
15. If there is time, I will proceed how we use biotechnology in plants. The first slide has a short
video on how we must improve agricultural yield to feed the world (1 minute and 30 seconds).
16. I will discuss the process of selective breeding. Step 1. DNA is isolated. Step 2. PCR is described
in a short video (1 minute and 27 seconds). Step 3. DNA fragments from PCR are separated on
gel. Step 4. See if banding pattern matches with traits of interest. If so, these bands are DNA
markers. To illustrate this, I use the traits of disease resistance and susceptibility.
17. Only grow the seedlings that have the DNA maker for your trait of interest and discard the other
seedlings. Ask the class to recall how many allele combinations they found for their trihybrid
crosses and if they would like to pollinate all of those plants. If not, the can opt for marker
assisted selection for their hypothetical plant breeding.
18. Next slide contains a video on plant breeding methods used in the past century and it discusses
the usefulness and issues of transgenically modified crops (7 minutes and 10 seconds). Discuss
video.
19. More videos on genetic engineering are there if there is extra time. These include a few more
genome sequence- based treatments to human diseases and one video on how a scientist is
engineering plants to detect bombs.