Biology in Your World
Section 1.2
Solving Real-World Problems
Biologists are working to solve
problems, such as:
 Preserving our environment
 Improving the food supply
 Understanding the human genome
 Fighting disease
Preserving our environment
 Conservation biologists are
exploring ways to achieve a balance
between people’s growing need for
land and the need to preserve the
environment.
Improving the food supply
 Genetic engineering of crop plants
has made some plants resistant to
herbicides, or poisonous to insect
pests, or more nutritious.
Understanding the human
genome
 A genome is the complete genetic
material contained in an individual.
 Government-funded and private
research teams from several
countries completed sequencing of
the human genome.
Fighting Disease
 AIDS is a fatal disease caused by HIV
(human immunodeficiency virus), a
virus that attacks and destroys the
human immune system.
 New vaccines are being tested that
attack two or more parts of the HIV
virus at the same time.
Fighting Disease, continued
 Cancer is a growth defect in cells, a
breakdown of the mechanism that
controls cell division.
 Great progress is being made in
curing many cancers. great promise.
Fighting Disease, continued
Emerging diseases
 Biologists are fighting new diseases
not known in the past.
 Some of these diseases include West
Nile virus and mad cow disease.
Fighting Disease, continued
 Gene Therapy is the replacement of
a defective gene with a normal one.
 Researchers believe it is possible to
use a virus to transfer a normal copy
of a gene into a cell.