Online lab Genetics

Each person inherits a minimum of two alleles for every charecteristic of their anatomy and physiology. One from their father (sperm) and one from their mother (egg). Genes are very significant to our lives because they determine how we look, our health, and our genome sequence which is being used for alot of different medical problems. Our genome sequence is allowing us to predict our future in a way! By showing us what health problems we may have and what medicines our body can benifit from without all the side effects. This sequence is being used to identify mutant genes that cause genetic disorders. In the future we might be able to cure children before they are born by adding a normal gene to an egg with a mutant gene. This absolutly amazes me! They say we might even get to pick our children one day I don't agree with this but the other things that our genes are capable of doing are great and may save some lives in the future!

Here are some definitions that will help you understand the labs below:

Genotype- Genes of the individual or alleles of the individual

Phenotype- Refers to the physical charecteristics associated with alleles

Allele- Alternative form of gene; one from each parent

Cross- Exchange of segments; significant because it is necessary to realize members of a homologous pair can carry diferent instructions for same genetic trait.

Dominant- Allele that exerts its phenotype

Recessive- Allele that is phenotypically expressed in homozygous but has its expression masked in presence of dominant

Homozygous dominant- dominant phenotype (AA)

Homozygous recessive- recessive phenotype (aa)

Heterozygous- shows dominant phenotype (Aa)

The lab to your right shows you how to manipulate alleles to make the two dragons match. For example to get the horns to appear but not be to long you needed a heterozygous pair (Hh) where the dominant phenotype is used. Another example is the wings are homozygous recessive (ww).

The lab to your right here showed us how to use the punnett square and match up parents and how their offspring would appear. You can see that each parent is a heterozygous pair. This square was about the flys wing length. The punett square shows the offspring and what the chances of them are to have long wings. So we have one dominant (LL), two heterozygous (Ll), and one homozygous recessive (ll) so the outcome is 3 to 1.

I really enjoyed these labs they were alot of fun and showed me how are genes contribute to every little thing that makes us an individual. These labs gave me a better understanding of dominant and recessive traits as well. This was an all in all fun lab!