The significance of genetic engineering is expressed in the words of Suzanne Wuerthele, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist, who stated, "This is probably one of the most technologically powerful developments the world has ever seen. It's the biological equivalent of splitting the atom." Although humans have worked to improve plant breeding for thousands of years, genetic engineering, or genetic modification, is a new, even revolutionary, technology. Unlike conventional plant breeding, which involves the shifting of different forms of the same gene already present in a species' gene pool, genetic engineering usually involves the transfer of foreign genes, genes not previously present in a species' gene pool, into the organism. In genetic engineering, scientists transfer genetic information, or DNA, from one or more organisms across species boundaries into a host organism to create an entirely new genetically engineered organism. For example, the transfer of a gene from a...