ABSTRACT
Genetics is one of the oldest scientific endeavors of humans. People have selectively bred various plants and animals since Stone Age. But it was only in the mid 1940s, long after the work of Mendel, the discovery of nucleic acids by Miescher, and many other important findings, such as the search for transforming factors and chemical analysis of DNA, that it was realized that genetic information is transferred via DNA and not by, say, genetic proteins or complex polysaccharides. From daily press people are aware of genetically altered plants, which are immune to some pesticides or extreme weather conditions, and microbes, which can survive by digesting ecologically damaging debris into useful products, as well as of almost weekly discoveries of genes responsible for various disorders, from cancers to obesity and, of course, of the human genome project. It is hoped that parallel studies of the function of genes will give invaluable tools in the treatment of hereditary and acquired diseases.
