Kosan is using genetic engineering techniques to steal the blueprints that nature uses to make antibiotics.
For the past 15 years, USDA has maintained a parallel regime focused exclusively on plants altered or produced through the most precise genetic engineering techniques.
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On the basis of both the science and regulatory precedents, the FDA decided in 1992 that labels need not include the use of the newer genetic engineering techniques to make foods.
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As noted above, the use of genetic engineering techniques for anything that falls within the regulatory definition of a "pesticide"--even when that definition is tortured to claim jurisdiction--triggers case-by-case review, which is not necessary for small-scale field trials for other pesticides, regardless of risk.
Because a field trial with a genetically engineered plant may be 10 to 20 times more expensive than the same experiment performed with a plant that has identical properties but that was modified with less precise genetic techniques, genetic engineering with the best techniques has been vastly under-used for the past 25 years.
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In spite of the scientific consensus that the new techniques of genetic engineering are essentially extensions, or refinements, of conventional (but less precise and less predictable) techniques of genetic modification, both U.N. entities have established requirements for the products of genetic engineering (whether plants or food derived from them) that no conventionally modified product could meet.
The agency treats genetically engineered products as though they pose some inherent, systematic, unique risks, when theoretical considerations, risk-assessment experiments and practical experience make it clear that they do not: A quarter-century-old scientific consensus holds that the molecular techniques of genetic engineering are an extension, or refinement, of less precise and predictable techniques for genetically improved products with which consumers and government regulators have long familiarity and comfort.
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Working independently of those large projects, bioengineers in university labs have drawn on recent advances in nanoscale lithography, miniature microscopy, genetic engineering and biochemical imaging techniques to build new tools to reveal relationships between brain cells.
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Ahmed argued consistently against the research applications of the newest, most precise and predictable techniques of genetic engineering, which have revolutionized medicine and agriculture.
Never mind that numerous professional medical and scientific societies around the world had concluded as early as the 1980s that the new molecular techniques of genetic engineering posed no greater risks to health or environment than other products.
Thus, genetic engineering is not new, but the techniques for accomplishing it have evolved.
Souped-up hybrid crops, such as maize, bred through conventional techniques rather than high-tech genetic engineering, do not keep their desired properties from one generation to the next because of natural genetic shuffling.
Although such genetic engineering is essentially an extension, or refinement, of techniques that have been around for centuries, it has led to less use of chemical pesticides, a drop in pesticide poisoning of farmers and their families, more environment-friendly agronomic practices and greater profits for farmers.
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