Psychological research has demonstrated that living in poverty has a wide range of negative effects on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of our nationâs children. Poverty impacts children within their various contexts at home, in school, and in their neighborhoods and communities.
Transformation. Definition. noun, plural: transformations. (1) The act, state or process of changing, such as in form or structure; the conversion from one form to another. (2) (biology) Any change in an organism that alters its general character and mode of life; post-natal biological transformation or metamorphosis. (3) (genetics) The genetic alteration of a bacterial cell resulting from the transfer of foreign DNA.
The term transformation is used to denote the genetic alteration of a cell caused by the uptake and expression of foreign DNA regardless of the mechanism involved. (Note that transformation has a second meaning defined in Chapter 6, namely, the process by which normal cells with a finite life span in culture are converted into continuously growing cells similar to cancer cells.)