What is the difference between the terms “genetically modified” (GM) and “genetically engineered” (GE)?
Many people use the two phrases to mean the same thing. Scientists have now started to use “genetically engineered” to describe recently-devised techniques that move genetic material from one living thing to another (sometimes across species) in ways that could never occur without human intervention. They use “genetically modified” to describe all human-designed changes to an organism, including genetic engineering and traditional plant and animal breeding. Traditional breeding of plants and animals involves influencing the inheritance of genes from one generation to the next in a way that could occur in nature. Historically, for example, farmers have used pollen from one variety of apple to pollinate another variety, thus combining the traits of the two.
