Their original experiment used a genetic switch to regulate production of a particular receptor molecule for serotonin.

ECONOMIST: Sudden infant death syndrome

And it may be possible to engineer a genetic switch, known as an inducible promoter, into the crop, along with the anti-meiosis genes.

ECONOMIST: Genetic engineering: No sex, please, we��re plants | The

But the parts list says those regions contain, or are close to, a particular kind of genetic switch turned on and off in various types of immune cell.

ECONOMIST: Human genomics

Dr Chalfie realised that if the GFP gene could be spliced into a chromosome next to the gene for a protein of interest, it would be controlled by the same genetic switch as that protein.

ECONOMIST: The 2008 Nobel science prizes

In 1990 Goodfellow and colleague Robert Lovell-Badge discovered the genetic "switch" that decides whether a fetus' gender-neutral gonad develops into a female ovary or male testes.

FORBES: On The Cover/Top Stories