(Describer) Titles: Hashtag AskMIT. Unicorns.
(Describer) In a video...
Hi. I'm Camry Piero
from Miss Pena's science class
in Kirtland, New Mexico.
I have a question for you.
Can you create a unicorn
by crossing DNA?
(Describer) In a lab...
Hi. I'm Dr. Sera Thornton from
the biology department at MIT.
I'm here to answer
your question:
How do you make a unicorn?
An important part
of being a unicorn is magic.
I can't help with that part,
but let's talk about making
a horse with a horn on its head.
That's something that scientists
are on the path of doing.
So you may have heard
about the human genome.
This is basically
the instructions
for making you, you.
Each cell in your body
has a copy of your genome.
It's made of DNA and has
about 25,000 genes in it.
You started as one cell.
Following instructions
in your genome,
you became a human
with trillions of cells
in the right places.
You have kidney cells
in your kidney,
liver cells in your liver,
and skin cells in your skin.
Humans aren't the only ones
to have genomes.
All living organisms
have genomes.
Ants have genomes,
and bacteria have genomes,
and tomatoes have genomes,
and horses have genomes.
When we understand
these genomes,
we can edit the genome
and then change the
characteristics of the organism.
We could take one gene from
a flower that makes it blue,
insert it into the tomato genome
and make a blue tomato.
That's pretty cool.
What should we know
to make a horse
with a horn on its head,
or a unicorn?
We'd want to know what parts
of the genome make the horn.
Maybe we could look at
the rhinoceros genome
because rhinos have
a horn on their head.
We actually know the sequence
of the rhino genome.
We know what it looks like,
but don't understand it yet.
It's like reading a book that's
in a language you don't know.
There's a lot of scientists
working to figure out
how to decode genomes.
So once we figure out
what part of the rhino genome
codes for one horn
in the middle of the head,
and it develops properly
at the right time,
we could take those pieces
from the rhino genome
and insert them
into the horse genome.
If we do this
in the right cell,
we could implant that cell
into a mother horse,
let it multiply, divide,
and eventually
become a baby unicorn.
Magic not included.
(Describer) Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Accessibility provided by the
U.S. Department of Education.
