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nice1
Not the droid your looking for



Registered: 09/26/09
Posts: 10,449
Loc: earth
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Any geneticists here?
#14940778 - 08/18/11 03:45 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I hear you take a virus and remove its unwanted functions then use the virus as a way of altering the genes in the target.
Anybody here work in the field?
Please put the THC gene in the common stinging nettle
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El Douche
El Douchius Maximus


Registered: 01/08/11
Posts: 538
Loc: Drippin Outa Da Vag
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1] 1
#14940807 - 08/18/11 03:59 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yup.
Do you have a few million to spare to set up a lab to do this? It can be done.
I was thinking lawn grass because it grows everywhere. The DEA would get suspicious if everybody started growing nettles. They test for THC in anything green found in a baggie.
Time to mow the lawn and burn the clippings.
-------------------- I'm The Douche, Doucher, His Royal Doucheness, or El Doucherino if you are not into that whole brevity thing. Trade List : Wanted/have edible cultures, ethobotanicals, cool plants, cacti.
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#14941065 - 08/18/11 06:22 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Thing is, even once you've introduced your genetic traits into grass/moss/algae/e.coli (e.coli is a popular one. GM e.coli have been used to make aspatame and insulin in their excretions) you have to do extensive tests to find out the unintended side effects.
DNA is a really complicated thing. When you modify one gene sequence, you can't predict the other changes that will happen. It's a real hurdle GM needs to get over before it can deliver on it's promises.
I did hear an urban legend of the THC oranges. Some geneticist in the 80's gave seeds to various orange groves in Florida. The moral behind the fable being, these oranges would be indistinguishable from normal oranges, the US government would have to accede defeat (or ban all oranges? Wouldn't put it past them these days) and then people could advocate if you're getting THC oranges, might as well have cannabis, which comes with the balance of other cannabinoids.
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4896744
Small Town Girl


Registered: 03/06/10
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THC oranges sound like the greatest thing ever.
-------------------- Live your Life!
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#14945997 - 08/19/11 06:12 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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The entire point of it is you'd have THC in an orange, so either the government would have to prohibit oranges,m or realise "hmm, people are going to get high no matter what. Let's legalise cannabis and tax it. We could do with the money to pay off the banker scum."
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Fonzee
Pretzel



Registered: 07/25/11
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The cannabis genome haven't been cracked yet. It will take some serious funding to just crack it down and see which gene you want to put in whatever you want.
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Fonzee
Pretzel



Registered: 07/25/11
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Loc: Israel
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#14961057 - 08/22/11 01:01 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Depends on how lucky your crew gets. Quite a bit usually. I would guess high 6 to low 7 digits.
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zergroz

Registered: 09/27/10
Posts: 500
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#14993491 - 08/28/11 08:32 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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rnastruc
Stranger
Registered: 08/27/11
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: zergroz] 1
#15019452 - 09/02/11 07:42 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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It would probably be pretty difficult to express psilocybin or THC in other plants. It is easy to express foreign proteins in plants, but psilocybin and THC are not proteins. They are molecules produced via reactions with metabolic intermediates. Therefore, you would have to insert the entire metabolic pathway into a plant for it to produce psilocybin or THC. It is possible, but probably very tricky.
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Man in the Box


Registered: 03/15/07
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: El Douche]
#15034234 - 09/05/11 06:24 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
El Douche said: Yup.
Do you have a few million to spare to set up a lab to do this? It can be done.

Serious question: how hard would it be to make the lab yourself? Or do you think it's possible? nothings impossible, especially something that we've already done before, we could make our own lab, ffs.
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5HTSynaptrip
Dopamine Enthusiast



Registered: 09/14/08
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It's ridiculously difficult to do something like this. First, because it isn't a protein that you're trying to make like insulin or HGH so just getting the required genetic information into E.coli or something doesn't require any special cellular machinery.
When you focus on an organic molecule like THC it becomes incredibly different because you have to get all the genes that make proteins that make THC into your target, and you need a vector to get the genes there. Putting THC in another plant doesn't seem practical when you already have Cannabis, so you would either want to make the plant more potent or have mass production of THC in something simple to control/grow like E.coli or algae.
Having E.coli make insulin from the human gene is an amazing accomplishment. It's easier to get a gene into E.coli than say from one higher eukaryote to another. Successfully isolating a physical gene, creating a vector, and inserting it successfully into the target takes a ridiculous amount of work. That and DNA/RNA are all over the place. Even when trying to isolate a gene you have to do so much work in some cases to prevent contamination(same for RNA... RNase Away ).
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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. - My hero, who will be forever remembered, Carl Sagan.
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nice1
Not the droid your looking for



Registered: 09/26/09
Posts: 10,449
Loc: earth
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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I heard they can transfer DNA/RNA just by passing a laser through the cells. I don't know much about it tho.
Would it be possible to breed cannabis with a stinging nettle to make a hybrid?
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5HTSynaptrip
Dopamine Enthusiast



Registered: 09/14/08
Posts: 4,360
Loc: USA
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#15037603 - 09/06/11 11:32 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Laser can be used for transfection(phototransfection) but there are a number of methods also utilized to get nucleotides inside a cell. Basically it creates an opening in the plasma membrane for the nucleotide to enter. It's a lot more complicated than just using a laser obviously. Eukaryotic cells have another membrane around the nucleus and I'm not sure if phototransfection also allows entry into the nucleus.
Eukaryotes may have promoter regions and transcription factors associated with a gene(also introns/exons). It's actually too much to explain in any reasonable forum post, and I what I do understand is still very basic.
If you're interested in understanding why cannabis can't sexually reproduce with a stinging nettle check out the wiki pages for "reproductive isolation" and "speciation." Obviously we know some species can successfully reproduce(often resulting in sterile organisms) between each other.
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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. - My hero, who will be forever remembered, Carl Sagan.
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LightShedder
Trading currencies



Registered: 08/30/05
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I studied genetic engineering last year for a while....
One thing I recall reading about was a technique in which one can retrieve viable DNA from an organism (such as a mammal) when the organism is healthy and at it's prime age (for example), and then store the cells until the organism has aged and gotten sick (let's say of lung cancer), at which time the healthy cells can be injected back into the organism (this is where I'm unsure aboutthe technique) to cause a domino-effect type occurrence to take place in the organism, thereby altering the entire organisms cells back into the condition they were in when they were isolated.
The key was, (1) it took some kind of special equipment and micro-implantation surgical technique to reintroduce the cells back into the organism in a way that would cause this effect to take place(I dont remember what the effect was called) and (2) the cells to be injected obviously had to be the DNA of the organism to be injected.
It might be possible to take cells with another DNA, and with the right skill and equipment be able to mutate them into your DNA expressed at age 24 in healthy condition, then using these cells to implant.
And that's how you utilize the language of god to receive eternal life. I learned all this in the bible btw.
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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: nice1]
#15039944 - 09/06/11 08:31 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
nice1 said: I hear you take a virus and remove its unwanted functions then use the virus as a way of altering the genes in the target.
Anybody here work in the field?
Please put the THC gene in the common stinging nettle 
So, have you found a geneticist yet?
Perhaps you've set your sites a bit too high.
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nice1
Not the droid your looking for



Registered: 09/26/09
Posts: 10,449
Loc: earth
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Re: Any geneticists here? [Re: johnm214]
#15041040 - 09/07/11 03:18 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I just wanted to find out how hard it is.
I don't intend on paying to actually have this done.
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