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ANSWER SHEET A: BEGIN WRITING YOUR ANSWERS HERE

1.The authors' purpose in writing this text is to: a. Explain the Human Genome Project. b. Predict the importance of the DNA research. c. Warn us about the dangers of the DNA research. d. Stress the uniqueness of the current research in biology. [9] 2. The example how to treat a wide range of medical disorders illustrates what?

_____________________________________________________ [9] 3. What questions (state any 4) do the authors of the article predict will be answered by 2050? a. ________________________________________________ b. ________________________________________________ c. ________________________________________________ d. ________________________________________________ [8] 4.Which question deals with social as opposed to scientific issues? _____________________________________________________ [9] 5. What is the significance of human history being a trellis? [9]
6.

What caused population biologists to conclude human beings were a small group?

that

________________________________________________________ [9] 7.What events can DNA analysis help anthropologists with? [9] a. ______________________________________________________ b. ______________________________________________________ c. ______________________________________________________

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ANSWER SHEET B: FINISH WRITING YOUR ANSWERS HERE

8a. The authors would AGREE / DISAGREE with the following statement. Science of the future will show that there is no difference between race and ethnicity. b. Justify your statement by quoting from the text. ________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ [10] 9a. What does the example of the Gypsies and the Jews illustrate? ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ b. What does the example of the South Pacific Islanders illustrate? ______________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ [10] 10. The underlying idea of this article is that: a. Deciphering the code of life will remain beyond our ability for many decades. b. What we learn about the genes of the fruit fly has no connection to man. c. Studying the genes of various organisms will answer several fundamental questions about life. d. Geneticists often violate basic moral precepts. [9]

11. Which question will probably have a negative answer? _____________________________________________________ [9]

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Deciphering the Code of Life

by Francis S. Collins and Karin G. Jegalian, Scientific American, December 1990

The study of all the genes of various organisms will yield answers to

some of the most intriguing questions about life

Some of these words you probably know. The ones you don't, look up in a dictionary and write their Hebrew definitions below on the chart. In the text, these words are in bold blue. If other words you don't recognize appear in the text, add them in the spaces on the chart. decipher hypothesize trellis organism catalogue anthropology intriguing schemes (n.) demographic millennium compendium mingle unprecedented reverberate interval encoded amass ambiguity elucidate tidy revelation fuel endeavor . extrapolate indispensable .

1. When historians look back at this turning of the millennium, they will note that the major scientific breakthrough of the era was the characterization in ultimate detail of the genetic instructions that shape a human being. The Human Genome Projectwhich aims to map every gene and spell out letter-by-letter the literal thread of life, DNAwill affect just about every branch of biology. The complete DNA sequencing of more and more organisms, including humans, will answer many important questions, how organisms evolved, whether synthetic life will ever be possible and how to treat a wide range of medical disorders. 2. The Human Genome Project is generating an amount of data unprecedented in biology. A simple list of the units of DNA, called bases, that make up the human genome would fill 200 telephone bookseven without annotations describing what those DNA sequences do. A working draft of 90 percent of the total human DNA sequence should be in hand by the spring of 2000, and the full sequence is expected in 2003. But that will be merely a skeleton that will require many layers of annotation to give it meaning. The payoff from the reference work will come from understanding the proteins encoded by the genes. 2.The authors' purpose in writing this text is to: a. Explain the Human Genome Project. b. Predict the importance of the DNA research. c. Warn us about the dangers of the DNA research. d. Stress the uniqueness of the current research in biology. [9]

such as

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2. The example how to treat a wide range of medical disorders illustrates what? The complete DNA sequencing of more and more organisms, including humans, will answer many important questions, [9] 3. Proteins not only make up the structural bulk of the human body but also include the enzymes that carry out the biochemical reactions of life. They are composed of units called amino acids linked together in a long string; each string folds in a way that determines the function of a protein. The order of the amino acids is set by the DNA base sequence of the gene that encodes a given protein, through intermediaries called RNA; genes that actively make RNA are said to be "expressed." 4. The Human Genome Project seeks not just to elucidate all the proteins produced within a human but also to comprehend how the genes that encode the proteins are expressed, how Human Genome contains all the biochemical instructions in the DNA sequences of those genes stack up against comparable genes of other species, how genes vary within our species and how DNA sequences translate into observable characteristics. Layers of information are built on top of the DNA. These data will fuel advances to biology for at least the next century. In a virtuous cycle, the more we learn, the more we will be able to extrapolate, hypothesize and understand. 5. By 2050 we believe that genomics will be able to answer the following major questions: Will the three-dimensional structures of proteins be predictable from their ammo acid sequences? 6. The six billion bases of the human genome are thought to encode approximately 100,000 proteins. Although the sequence of amino acids in a protein can be translated in a simple step from the DNA sequence of a gene, we cannot currently elucidate the shape of a protein on purely theoretical grounds, and determining structures experimentally can be quite laborious. Recently an international group of structural biologists have begun a Protein Structure Initiative to coordinate their work. As the catalogue of solved structures swells and scientists develop more refined schemes for grouping structures into a compendium of basic shapes, biochemists will increasingly be able to use computers to model the structures of newly discoveredor even wholly inventedproteins. Will synthetic life forms be produced?

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7. Whereas structural biologists work to group proteins into categories for the practical aim of solving structures efficiently, the fact that proteins are so amenable to classification reverberates with biological meaning. It reflects how life on the earth evolved and opens the door to the question central to understanding the phenomenon of life itself. Is there a set of proteins common to all organisms? What are the biochemical processes required for life? 8. If, within a few years, investigators can expect to amass a tidy directory of the gene productsRNA as well as proteinsrequired for life, they may well be able to make a new organism from scratch by stringing DNA bases together into an invented genome coding for invented products. Will we be able to build a computer model of a cell that contains all the components, identifies all the biochemical interactions and makes accurate predictions about the consequences of any stimulus given to that cell? 9. In the past 50 years, a single gene or a single protein often dominated a biologist's research. In the next 50 years, researchers will shift to studying integrated functions among many genes, the web of interactions among gene pathways and how outside influences affect the system. 10. Of course, biologists have long endeavored to describe how components of a cell interact: how molecules called transcription factors bind to specific scraps of DNA to control gene expression. Will the details of how genes determine mammalian development become clear? 11. Being able to model a single cell will be impressive, but to understand fully the levels of complexity, we will have to examine how genes and their products behave in space and time that is, in different parts of the body and in a body that changes over a life span. Will understanding the human genome transform preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medicine? 12. Molecular biology has long held out the promise of transforming medicine from a matter of serendipity to a rational pursuit grounded in a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of life. 13. Within 20 years, novel drugs will be available that derive from a detailed, molecular understanding of common illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure. By 2050 many potential diseases will be cured at the molecular level before they arise, although large inequities worldwide in access to these advances will continue to stir tensions.

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Will we be able to reconstruct the major steps in the evolution of life on the earth? 14. Molecular sequences have been indispensable tools for drawing taxonomies since the 1960s. To a large extent, DNA sequence data have already exposed the record of 3.5 billion years of evolution, sorting living things into three domains Archaea (single-celled organisms of ancient origin), Bacteria and Eukarya (organisms whose cells have a nucleus)and revealing the branching patterns of hundreds of kingdoms and divisions. 15. This kind of "lateral gene transfer" appears to have been common enough in the history of life, so that comparing genes among species will not yield a single, universal family tree. As with human lineages, a more apt analogy for the history of life

will be a net or a trellis

where separated lines diverge and

join again, rather than a tree, where branches never merge. Scientists will also address the question that has dogged people since Charles Darwin's day: What makes us human? What distinguishes us as a species? How will individuals, families and society respond to this explosion in knowledge about our genetic heritage? 16. This social question, unlike the preceding scientific, technological and medical ones, does not come down to a yes-or-no answer. Genetic information and technology will afford great opportunities to improve health and to alleviate suffering. But any powerful technology comes with risks, and the more powerful the technology, the greater the risks. 3. What questions (state any 4) do the authors of the article predict will be answered by 2050? a. ________________________________________________ b. ________________________________________________ c. ________________________________________________ d. ________________________________________________ [8] 5.Which question deals with social as opposed to scientific issues? How will individuals, families and society respond to this explosion in knowledge about our genetic heritage? [9]

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5. What is the significance of human history being a trellis?

This kind of "lateral gene transfer" appears to have been common enough in the history of life, so that comparing genes among species will not yield a single, universal family tree

OR

[where separated lines diverge and join again, rather than a tree, where branches
never merge.

9]

Will we reconstruct accurately the history of human populations? 17. Despite what may seem like great diversity in our species, studies from the past decade show that the human species is more homogeneous than many others; as a group, we display less variation than chimps do. Among humans, the same genetic variations tend to be found across all population groups, and only a small fraction of the total variation (between 10 and 15 percent) can be related to differences between groups. This has led some population biologists to the conclusion that not so long ago the human species was ill composed of a small group, perhaps 10,000 individuals, and that human populations dispersed over the earth only recently. Most genetic variation predated that time. Armed with techniques for analyzing DNA, population geneticists have for the past 20 years been able to address anthropological questions with unprecedented clarity. Demographic events

such as

migrations,

population bottlenecks and expansions alter gene frequencies, leaving a detailed and comprehensive record of events in human history. Genetic data have bolstered the view that modern humans originated relatively recently, perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, in Africa and dispersed gradually into the rest of the world. Anthropologists have used DNA data to test cultural traditions about the origins of groups such as Gypsies and Jews, to track the migration of humans into the South Pacific islands and the Americas, and to glean insights into the spread of populations in Europe, among other examples. As DNA sequence data become increasingly easy to accumulate, relationships among groups of people will become clearer, revealing histories of intermingling as well as periods of separation and migration. Race and ethnicity will prove to be largely social, and cultural ideas, sharp, scientifically based boundaries between groups will be found to be nonexistent. 18. By 2050, then, we will know much more than we do now about human populations, but a question remains: How much can be known? Human beings have mated with enough abandon that probably no one family tree will be the unique solution accounting for all human history. In fact, the history of human populations will emerge not as a tree but as a trellis where lineages often meet and mingle after intervals of

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separation. Still, in 50 years, we will know how much ambiguity remains in our reconstructed history.
8.

What caused population biologists to conclude human beings were a small group?

that

Among humans, the same genetic variations tend to be found across all population groups OR not so long ago the human species was ill composed of a small group,

[9] 9.What events can DNA analysis help anthropologists with? [9] a. migrations b. population bottlenecks c. expansions alter gene frequencies 8a. The authors would AGREE / DISAGREE with the following statement. Science of the future will show that there is no difference between race and ethnicity. b. Justify your statement by quoting from the text. ___________P. 17__________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ [10] 9a. b. What does the example of the Gypsies and the Jews illustrate?
test cultural traditions about the origins of groups

What does the example of the South Pacific Islanders illustrate?

to track the migration of humans

[10]

19. Finally, will antitechnology movements be quieted by all the revelations of genetic science? Although we have enumerated so many questions to which we argue the answer will be yes, this is one where the answer will probably be no. The tension between scientific advances and the desire to return to a simple and more "natural" lifestyle will probably intensify as genomics seeps into more and more of our daily lives. The challenge will be to maintain a healthy balance and to shoulder collectively the responsibility for ensuring that the advances arising from genomics are not put to ill use. 10. The underlying idea of this article is that: e. Deciphering the code of life will remain beyond our ability for

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many decades. f. What we learn about the genes of the fruit fly has no connection to man. g. Studying the genes of various organisms will answer several fundamental questions about life. h. Geneticists often violate basic moral precepts. [9]

11. Which question will probably have a negative answer? will antitechnology movements be quieted by all the revelations of genetic science? [9]