WHAT IS GENETIC ENGINEERING? HOW IS IT DONE?

Imagine a farmer crossing a fish with a tomato or breeding a chicken with a moth. Ridiculous idea isn't it? We know it's impossible because nature doesn't allow it. Yet that's what genetic engineers are doing these days; by altering an organism's blueprint of heredity.


Genetic engineering, only about 25 years old, allows scientists to change the DNA or genetic make-up of living organisms. They have learnt to cut and join the strands of DNA, to cut specific genes from DNA of one organism and insert them into the DNA of another, completely unrelated species. This method of mixing genes from completely different species - humans, animals, bacteria, viruses, fungi and plants - is known by several names; modern biotechnology, gene biotechnology, gene modification, transgenic/recombinant technology.


This technique has been likened tu shuffling the deck of genes to create living things that have never existed before. That's how you get fish genes in fruit, insect genes in plants or viruses, viruses and bacteria in plants, chicken genes in fish and so on.


This transfer is done by using a bacterium or virus - carrying the gene to be transferred - to invade the host cell using a "gene gun" to shoot the gene into the cell. But it's not as precise as the biotech industry would like you to belive. No genetic engineer can tell where along the DNA the new gene is going to be inserted. It's a blind transfer, a hit-or-miss, random process.