4
Fish Breeding and Biotechnology
Contents
4.1 The Global Food Shortage and Genetic Engineering....................................................... 79
4.2 Chromosome Manipulation ............................................................................................... 81
4.3 Cell Manipulation .............................................................................................................. 88
4.4 Gene Manipulation ............................................................................................................ 96
4.5 Chapter Summary and Conclusion ................................................................................... 105
References .................................................................................................................................. 106
4.1 The Global Food Shortage and Genetic Engineering
On October 12, 1990, at a hospital in Sarajevo, Bosnia, then United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared the birth of the six-billionth human being. It
had taken 12 years for the world’s population to increase by one billion people
from five to six billion, and 13 years before that to climb from four to five billion.
As this shows, the rate of population increase had accelerated enough to shorten the
time that it took for the population to grow by one billion people. Increases in
population are inevitably accompanied by food production issues; methods that
have been used to date to increase food production include expansions of farmland
area, use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and cultivation of high-yield grain
varieties. The amount of land available for us to use is limited, however, and issues
with the safety of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have called attention to constraints in terms of their use to increase food production. For this reason, breeding
scientists have turned to genetic engineering methods for more efficient production
of new varieties (Cassman and Liska 2007; Long et al. 2015).
Genetic engineering has undergone astonishing developments since Watson and
Crick first unlocked the secret of the genes in DNA in 1953. Artificial organisms have
been cloned, as with the sheep “Dolly” produced in 1996. Since then, artificially
cloned organisms such as the sheep “Dolly” (produced in 1996) have been produced:
a cloned monkey and cow followed in 1997 and 1998, respectively, while South
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
S.-K. Kim, Essentials of Marine Biotechnology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20944-5_4
79
Fish Breeding and Biotechnology
Contents
4.1 The Global Food Shortage and Genetic Engineering....................................................... 79
4.2 Chromosome Manipulation ............................................................................................... 81
4.3 Cell Manipulation .............................................................................................................. 88
4.4 Gene Manipulation ............................................................................................................ 96
4.5 Chapter Summary and Conclusion ................................................................................... 105
References .................................................................................................................................. 106
4.1 The Global Food Shortage and Genetic Engineering
On October 12, 1990, at a hospital in Sarajevo, Bosnia, then United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared the birth of the six-billionth human being. It
had taken 12 years for the world’s population to increase by one billion people
from five to six billion, and 13 years before that to climb from four to five billion.
As this shows, the rate of population increase had accelerated enough to shorten the
time that it took for the population to grow by one billion people. Increases in
population are inevitably accompanied by food production issues; methods that
have been used to date to increase food production include expansions of farmland
area, use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and cultivation of high-yield grain
varieties. The amount of land available for us to use is limited, however, and issues
with the safety of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have called attention to constraints in terms of their use to increase food production. For this reason, breeding
scientists have turned to genetic engineering methods for more efficient production
of new varieties (Cassman and Liska 2007; Long et al. 2015).
Genetic engineering has undergone astonishing developments since Watson and
Crick first unlocked the secret of the genes in DNA in 1953. Artificial organisms have
been cloned, as with the sheep “Dolly” produced in 1996. Since then, artificially
cloned organisms such as the sheep “Dolly” (produced in 1996) have been produced:
a cloned monkey and cow followed in 1997 and 1998, respectively, while South
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
S.-K. Kim, Essentials of Marine Biotechnology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20944-5_4
79