• Question: Is it possible to change DNA of one animal to another ? If so what would happen if you added DNA to a animal from a different animal or specie ?

    Asked by #Sciecnce fan ! to Oliver, Kieran, David on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Kieran

      Kieran answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      So DNA is just a string of letters right, which are the instructions on how to make a new individual. So changing them from one species to another would change the instructions and the result would be different. So yes, you could make a Kangaroos DNA more like a sheep (and get a woolly jumper) but you would have to edit a lot of DNA. We have approximately 25,000 genes in our genome!

    • Photo: Oliver

      Oliver answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Thanks for the great questions – I agree with Kieran. Woolly jumper! Ha!
      There are also (controversial) research trying to someday make human-animal hybrids (for example, pigs with human organs inside them, for donor organ transplantations). You should have a look here to see a bit more about this: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/human-pig-hybrid-embryo-chimera-organs-health-science/

      I can see the positives and negatives on this!

Comments