GTC and a few other companies put human genes into animals so they produce a human protein in their milk.

So has cloning, which involves making copies of desirable animals, rather than putting foreign genes in them.

He was referring to one of his favorite new technologies, which has put human genes on microchips.

"Putting new genes into bacteria did not have the unintended consequence of making the bacteria dangerous."

Gene therapy involves putting genes into cells in the body, often to replace native genes that are malfunctioning.

To be sure, scientists have been putting genes into bacteria and other cells for three decades.

This phenomenon, which he calls "stabilizing selection," puts genes and environment on a par in secondary importance compared to the epigenetic system.

After all, society accepts drugs made by putting human genes in hamster cells, even though this crosses species barriers as much as agricultural biotechnology does.

"It's like when people first put genes into cells 20 years ago - it's a starting point."

The idea, being explored by several teams, is to put such genes into vaccinia virus and inoculate patients with it.