And while it didn't lead to Simpson's conviction, DNA came to the forefront of litigation strategies and will, no doubt, continue to play an important role in the outcome of future cases that come before the nation's criminal courts. Simply put, genetic fingerprinting allows researchers to identify organisms precisely-to distinguish between apparently similar individuals, whether they are people, phytopthora, or plants. Every organism has different DNA sequences because each has different functions. Most organisms have a lot of DNA, Gresshoff explained. There are, in fact, six feet of DNA strands in each cell.
Soybean has about a billion bases.
Thanks largely to research that originated in a UT laboratory a decade ago, DNA fingerprinting is now being used in the horticulture industry for both commercial and academic purposes. This technique was developed at UT in 1989 by Drs. UT holds the patent for this technology. The DNA amplification process involves extracting a small sample of DNA from the plant and placing it in a polymerase chain reaction in which the DNA is repeatedly duplicated. This genetic bar code allows scientists a way to categorize organisms according to their DNA makeup.