GENETIC ENGINEERING

noun (Health and Fitness) (Science and Technology) The deliberate modification of a living thing by manipulation of its DNA. Etymology: A straightforward combination of genetic with engineering in its more general sense of 'the application of science to design etc.'. History and Usage: The techniques of genetic engineering were developed during the late sixties and seventies and contributed significantly to the boom in biotechnology during the eighties when applied to industrial processes. There was concern about the possible ecological effects of releasing genetically engineered organisms (such as plants resistant to crop diseases, frost damage, etc.) into the environment, but this was allowed under licence in the UK from 1989 onwards. Applications of genetic engineering to human DNA have proved even more problematical because of the ethical implications of altering genetic make-up; in the UK, measures to control experiments involving genetic engineering on human tissue were added to the Health and Safety Act in 1989. We are in the process now of bioengineering the world's agroscape. This means moving around the players as well as making new ones through genetic engineering. Conservation Biology Dec. 1988, p. 309 Genetic engineering is often presented as producing unnatural hybrids which have no counterparts in the wild. It feeds on people's notions that there is a harmony or wisdom in nature with which we tamper at our peril, even though alongside that people want their videos and their modern medicines and all the other things that science brings by tampering with nature. Guardian 6 July 1989, p. 19