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Dna Fingerprinting Essay

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DNA Fingerprinting Forget everything typically thought about fingerprints. People often believe that a ‘fingerprint’ is the only way to get an individual’s set of DNA. This isn’t true, not in the slightest. The historical importance of DNA fingerprinting lies in the uniqueness of the genetic makeup of each print.
True to his words, Professor Sir Alec Jeffrey’s discovery of the variations in a specific set of DNA, was truly an ‘eureka’ moment. Being a young scientist thrown into a mix of very educated professors at Leicester certainly wasn’t easy. Although, Jeffrey was granted his request for space, wanting to expand his research on how genetic variations evolved. He had decided while studying earlier at the University of Oxford, that …show more content…

The original technology used to determine the order of DNA building blocks was known as Sanger sequencing. As useful as it is, this technique is very time consuming and expensive. It has been developed to be more automated and faster, keeping it existent in many laboratories today. Other options are out there, such as Next-Generation sequencing. Although, much faster and more efficient, it’s not nearly as thorough. (Adv. in DNA Seq.)
A DNA fingerprint is a representation of parts of an individual’s DNA that can be used to identify a person at the molecular level. DNA fragments with different numbers of repeated DNA sequences show up as different bands on a gel (Nowicki 256-257). Gel electrophoresis is an electrical current used to separate a mixture of DNA fragments from each other. DNA fragments of different sizes appear as different bands, or lines. This pattern is a DNA map (Nowicki 250).
Probability is the chance or ‘likelihood’ of something happening. This concept was strongly debated when fingerprinting first came about. The main argument had the following focus: “What good would it be if there are five hundred people with the exact DNA fingerprint?” Later, as more research was done and numbers were tested, scientists proved that it would be nearly impossible for two people in the world to have the exact DNA. As each person’s DNA differs in the structure of arranged bands (repeats) in different locations, the odds grow.
Suppose that

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