What is Recombinant DNA?
Recombinant DNA is a type of DNA that is artificially created by inserting a strand or more of DNA into a different set of DNA. Recombinant DNA is used in genetic modification to create completely new organisms by adding artificial bits or bits of DNA from other organisms to an existing creature. Recombinant DNA is often referred to as rDNA for short. The technique for making recombinant DNA was first developed in the early-1970s by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Norman Cohen. Their original paper described a method to use recombinant DNA to create transgenic bacteria. Their work was built on the work of Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith, and Werner Arber, who discovered restriction endonucleases. In 1978 the three were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for this discovery. At its most basic, recombinant DNA is just putting strands of DNA together that wouldn’t otherwise appear together. These could simply be multiple strands of cloned DNA from the same organism, combined to create something
Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the blueprint for life. Inside every cell in your body, DNA contains the code that determines who you are and what traits you have. Recombinant DNA is DNA from two different sources that has been combined in vitro (outside living organisms). There are three main reasons for creating recombinant DNA: (i) to create a protein product, (ii) to create multiple copies of genes, and (iii) to insert foreign genes into other organisms to give those organisms a new trait (Campbell & Reece, 2002). Recombinant DNA is used widely today to create large amounts of protein for treating certain illnesses. In 1982, insulin became the first recombinant DNA drug to hit the market (NHGRI, 2003). A person with diabetes does not produce adequate insulin. Insulin, a protein, can now be produced in large quantities by bacteria that have been given the human insulin gene (Hormones, n.d.; Stanford University, 2002; G. Stein & J. Stein, 2002). Another example of a protein that is
