Re: "AND ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST" a song

Jim:

>Not to be argumentative, but we there are several areas that could 
>benefit agriculture that would require multigene transfer.

Your point is well taken.  At the present time one gene is about what 
is all that is practical.  Of course many of the most important traits 
are going to be multigenic.  Unfortunately, we also don't understand 
how these traits operate.  The techniques of genetic engineering is 
such that it is going to be very difficult to inject multiple genes - 
would probably have to be done one gene at a time.  How to do isolate 
10, or 100 genes for cold tolerance or aluminum tolerance?  

Actually, some of this could be done by other techniques, just as 
complicated as genetic engineering but not as glamorous as genetic 
engineering and probably not understood by the biochemical geneticist 
who work on genetic engineering.

The question I have is, how many genes can you inject and still claim 
you have the original species?  Even if you inject one gene is that 
transgenetic plant a new species?  What's going to be more intersting 
is when they start injecting genes into human DNA!

Joe Halinar

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