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   What is a 'New Era' Application?
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What is a "New Era" Application?

The vast majority of acres now planted worldwide to GMO crops have been engineered via rDNA techniques to be resistant to herbicides or to produce Bt toxins in cell tissues, for control of certain Lepidopteran insects. These applications have proven costly and sometimes erratic in the field, in part because of gene silencing and pleitropic effects. Questions remain over environmental impacts and food safety.

"New era" applications strive to capture the benefits rDNA techniques without the costs, risks, and potential instability. They utilize emerging knowledge of gene location and function to guide breeders in the application of conventional and innovative breeding techniques that do not rely on a transgene with a promoter and marker genes. The relative roles, capabilities, and tools of transgene-based versus "New era" applications will be the focus of much discussion in the years ahead, since most ag biotech skeptics are either generally to fully supportive of "New era" applications like marker-assisted breeding.

Ag BioTech InfoNet will map the evolution of this discussion in future postings under the heading "New Era" Applications

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Last Updated 10/30/02
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