Transgenic foods are those that are created when we take a gene from one particular food item and move it to another food item. Traditionally, we have been doing this all the time from conventional breeding, where we have a lot of sharing of the genetic info. More recently, we have been able to develop techniques where we may be able to take a single gene and move it from one particular plant or life form to another plant. This allows us to confer specific traits that are desired in this new plant. A lot of this is quite controversial- we are covering new ground as we speak.

Paul Thompson

The first thing I think to consider is what transgenic means - I generally answer this question by saying that, to me, transgenic means the use of some of the new recombinant DNA techniques to insert genes into an agricultural plant or animal. In a sense though, from the standpoint of social and ethical issues, it is probably better to be a little broader and maybe looser in the definition. Because people that are not scientists tend to lump a number of things together that involves, I think, very different scientific techniques. For example, cloning is often thought of as an example of biotechnology and included along with transgenics in terms of what's controversial about biotechnology, but cloning technology does not involve the transfer of genes and, from a scientific standpoint, it is really a wholly different set of issues.

David Schmidt

The word transgenic, I think does imply technically moving genes from one organism to another for some improvement in that. I think that the term itself does conjure up some negative connotations with consumers who are not familiar with this technology- so, while I am familiar with it, we do have to be careful with the term transgenic. Terms such as food or agricultural biotechnology are probably better understood by more consumers by our consumer research.

Janine Sherrier

To me transgenic means moving DNA from a distally related organism into another organism. And another subtle version of transgenics is when you introduce a genetic change in an organism using modern molecular techniques.

Joan Burnside

Now a transgenic organism is an organism whose genome has been modified by foreign DNA. And this is done using what has become very routine genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology. The technology allows the transfer of DNA between species. This was not previously possible by normal routine breeding techniques. Now, transgenic animals represent an enormous research tool. They can be used to model human disease. They can be used for the targeted production of pharmaceuticals that are of use to humans. And also they can be used to modify production characteristics of animals that are raised for food or milk in our country.