Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel
From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
Subject: Re: Reconstructing cells from DNA
Message-ID: <1991Apr17.013059.7708@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
References: <1991Apr16.235422.20331@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1991 01:30:59 GMT

In article <1991Apr16.235422.20331@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
rs54@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Richard Sucgang) writes:
>In drosophila, for example,
>proper morphogenesis is dependent on how the maternal RNA is distributed
>in the initial embryo.  That  remains quite essentially, genetic.

     Anything to do with biochemistry is ultimately genetic.  I don't
think there's any denying that.  There is a question however which needs
to be raised which isn't often enough asked: by focussing so much on
genes, are we missing parts of the big picture?  Let's go back to the
original question of this thread.  If I remember correctly, someone
asked if a dinosaur could be produced from fossilized DNA.  Just for the
sake of argument, let's replace the dinosaur with something more exotic.
(It doesn't matter what exactly.  I'll let you fill in the blanks.)  If
DNA were the blueprint which many claim it to be, then certainly we
could reproduce an entire organism from its DNA.  However it is my
contention that unless we know something about the environment in which
development of the original owner of the DNA occured, we would have no
hope of reproducing the organism from its genetic material alone.  Thus
we might be able to get a dinosaur by guessing that a modern reptile
would provide an appropriate environment for dinosaur genetic material,
but we would have no hope of getting a functioning organism from an
unidentified piece of DNA.

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca