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Science 18 December 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5397, pp. 2176 - 2178
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5397.2176
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News Focus

BIOTECHNOLOGY:
Toting Up the Early Harvest Of Transgenic Plants

Anne Simon Moffat

Fifteen years after researchers began trying to create new strains of plants by engineering them with foreign genes, they can count several successes, but have hit snags in some efforts. The successes largely involve transfers of single genes, including genes that make crop plants resistant to insect pests, diseases, or herbicides. Last season at least 30 million hectares worldwide were planted with such crops. Also looking promising are efforts aimed at inducing plants to make edible vaccines or monoclonal antibodies. More complex gene transfers, such as efforts to transform conventional crop plants into factories for plastics or a "natural" cotton/polyester blend, are running into trouble, however.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)