READING

Lights on, lights off. Just the quick flick of a finger on a simple switch brightens or darkens the
room.
That power is the envy of geneticists. They long for similar ease in activating and de-activating
genes in cultured cells and transgenic animals. In recent years, these scientists have gained some
measure of control by using chemical compounds, including the antibiotic tetracycline, to govern
genes in cells and mice.
The insect hormone ecdysone may provide the most effective gene switch yet, suggest
investigators from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in
La Jolla, Calif., and the University of California, San Diego. To support that contention, the group
has made mammalian cells and strains of mice with genes that are activated when ecdysone reaches
them.
With such a system, researchers should be able to examine the importance of the timing of gene
activity, particularly during an organism's development. Since the hormone has no adverse effect on
mammalian cells, ecdysone-based switches may ultimately provide a non-toxic way to control the
therapeutic genes inserted into humans.
"It looks pretty promising. It seems to work as well as, if not better than, the tetracycline
system," says Janet Rossant, a developmental biologist at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

31. The opening paragraph provides an example of an application of

a. Lights.
b. Rooms.
c. Electricity.
d. Darkness.

32. In recent years chemical compounds have helped scientists

a. to measure cultured cells.
b. to control gene activity to a certain extent.
c. to train mice.
d. to switch from genes to mice.

33. What have investigators managed to do with ecdysone? They've managed to

a. affect the metabolism of special mice.
b. produce mammalian cells.
c. change the strains of ordinary mice.
d. activate ordinary mice.

34. What is an apparent advantage of ecdysone?

a. It helps make mammalian cells.
b. It does not harm mammalian cells.
c. It is therapeutic.
d. It will become non-toxic.

35. According to the last paragraph, scientists are

a. promising miracles.
b. clearly in favour of tetracycline instead.
c. looking for more promising alternatives.
d. optimistic about the potential of ecdysone.