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Answers

Question

What would a student major in at college to learn to create GMOs?

Submitted by: Bradenst17


Answer

Expert response from Alan McHughen

CE Biotechnology Specialist and Geneticist

Tuesday, 12/16/2014 00:40

Modern GMOs are developed by teams of experts in different fields, as few individuals have the broad range of skills needed to develop commercialized GMOs alone. Also, different kinds of GMOs are developed for different purposes by teams with differing expertise. For example, a GMO to produce a pharmaceutical product like insulin would not require the same expertise as a GM corn crop with enhanced drought tolerance.

 

However, the experts typically have college level training in subjects including basic biology, chemistry (especially biochemistry), genetics (especially molecular genetics), microbiology, plant science, plant and animal breeding, agronomy, and food science.  You need not cover all of these subjects, but basic biology, chemistry and genetics provide a common foundation. Once you have that firm foundation, then you can add specific subjects according to your specific interest—microbiology and food science to make microbial GMOs used food processing, for example, or plant science and agronomy to develop improved crop varieties.