Designer Seeds (Chinese Version, 2001-2002)

Summary: One of the earliest methods to help plants survive disease and insect infestation was to cross-breed plants that could survive these assaults with plants that could not in the hopes of passing on the 'resistant' gene. While studying a plant disease named crown gall, which is caused by a bacterium, scientists discovered that the disease spread in plants by transference of genetic material from the bacterium into the plant cells. This led to the development of techniques to cut and splice DNA and introduce genes into plants. However, isolating the genes responsible for a specific desired trait was another matter.