00.00 – 01.29
A group of people protesting about the growing of GM plants. This programme looks at the science and origins of genetics and also considers the moral and ethical issues.

01.30 – 02.40
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution provided the foundations for the origins of genetics. How are characteristics passed on in humans from one generation to the next?

02.41 – 03.55
Gregor Mendel, a monk from the Czech Republic, was the person behind solving the problem. He devoted several years to studying the sex life of pea plants in the monastery garden. He was interested in solving a big unanswered question in biology – how do plants and animals pass on their characteristics from one generation to another?

03.56 – 06.09
In 1856, Mendel began an enormous series of experiments on the pea plant. He took different strains of peas and carefully recorded what happened when they were crossbred. In particular, he looked at flower colour, pod colour and the shape of the pea pod. He used a painstaking method of fertilising the plants transferring pollen from the male part of one plant to the female part of another. Over ten years he studied more than 20,000 plants and kept detailed records – over the years he bred many generations of peas and looked at how the various characteristics presented themselves. Eventually, he noticed a consistent and remarkable pattern.

06.10 – 08.41
Mendel had discovered a fundamental law of inheritance – when plants breed, each parent passes on a set of instructions (Mendel called these ‘factors’) for creating every one of the offspring’s physical characteristics. Only one of these factors is activated but the other factors lie dormant and can reappear in later generations. His research was published in 1866 but it was not recognised until after his death in 1900 when a biologist stumbled across his paper in a library.

08.42 – 10.06
Mendel’s factors are what we now call ‘genes’ and genes determine every characteristic we inherit. Each species has its own unique sequence of genes and the entire sequence is called the ‘genome’. Each cell in a person’s body contains a long strand of DNA and each strand contains hundreds of genes arranged in a set order. Strands are packed in bundles called chromosomes. Once the sequence is sorted, scientists can look at it and identify the genes – these can be isolated and studied to see how they work. In principle, they can be modified – this is what Genetic Modification is all about.

10.07 – 13.41
Genetically modified wheat and bananas in research laboratories. Why do wheat and bananas need to be modified genetically? To improve the quality of the flour for making bread, to preserve the length of ripeness of bananas in the supermarket and to protect them from fungal infection.

13.42 – 15.27
It is also possible to modify animals, eg fish can be genetically modified to make them grow bigger.

15.28 – end
Should we be interfering with Nature? What risks come with genetic manipulation? What about the use of gene therapy for people to treat diseases that have been inherited, eg cystic fibrosis?