Genetically Modified Plants, Second Edition, provides an updated roadmap and science-based methodology for assessing the safety of genetic modification technologies, as well as risk assessment approaches from regulators across different agroecosystems. This new edition also includes expanded coverage of technologies used in plant improvement, such as RNA-dependent DNA methylation, reverse breeding, agroinfiltration, and gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR and TALENS. This book is an essential resource for anyone interested in crop improvement, including students and researchers, practitioners in regulatory agencies, and policymakers involved in plant biotechnology risk assessment.

A transgenic organism is a plant, animal, bacterium, or other living organism that has had a foreign gene added to it by means of genetic engineering. Transgenic plants can arise by natural movement of genes between species, by cross-pollination based hybridization between different plant species (which is a common event in flowering plant evolution), or by laboratory manipulations by artificial insertion of genes from another species. Methods used in traditional breeding that generate transgenic plants by non-recombinant methods are widely familiar to professional plant scientists, and serve important roles in securing a sustainable future for agriculture by protecting crops from pest and helping land and water to be used more efficiently.
There is worldwide interest in the biosafety issues related to transgenic crops because of issues such as increased pesticide use, increased crop and weed resistance to pesticides, gene flow to related plant species, negative effects on nontarget organisms, and reduced crop and ecosystem diversity. This book is intended to provide the basic information for a wide range of people involved in the release of transgenic crops. These will include scientists and researchers in the initial stage of developing transgenic products, industrialists, and decision makers. It will be of particular interest to plant scientists taking up biotechnological approaches to agricultural improvement for developing nations.
* Discusses traditional and future technology for genetic modification
* Compares conventional non-GM approaches and genetic modification
* Presents a risk assessment methodology for GM techniques
* Details mitigation techniques for human and environmental effects

Of special interest to those countries that are relatively new to the biotechnology field, this unique data source describes emerging biotechnology trends in developing countries and in Central and Eastern Europe. It includes information on government policy and legislation, biotechnology programs, research centers, universities, private companies, and national societies and organizations in each country.

For a number of years, the promise of biotechnology has been dimmed by concerns over the intrinsic safety of transgenic organisms. Although considerable knowledge of the properties of recombinant systems and a vast volume of data gathered from different applications of biotechnology are now available, these concerns are still evident. In the developing world, there are also fears that such countries might be used as testing grounds for recombinant products. Considerations of this nature have often overshadowed the benefits these countries might derive from the application of genetic engineering. In response to these concerns, UNIDO, together with the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization, formed in 1985 the Informal Working Group on Biosafety. In 1991, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also joined the Group. The present volume was commissioned by the Group and is intended to help scientists and regulators to conceptualize the major issues underlying biological safety as well as to understand how these affect policies to regulate biotechnology.