Genetic engineering turns a common plant into a cancer fighter

[mike_c]

61. not really, although that's a common misunderstanding....

Genes represent stored information. Inserting a new gene into an existing plant's genome doesn't make a new plant species any more than putting a new book on the shelf makes a new library.

There are several ways that we define a "species," none of which is completely satisfying or absolute, i.e. they all have conspicuous exceptions, but the most commonly applied definition is that organisms belong to the same species if they can breed with one another and produce viable offspring. It's hard to apply to fossil organisms and impossible for separating species of asexual organisms, but it works well enough in this case. If the resulting engineered tobacco relative is still capable of breeding with "wild type" individuals without the inserted gene, then the GMO is not a new species. Instead it's still the original species-- it just has the genetic information needed to produce an additional medicinal compound. There's no reason to think that the GMO in this case is reproductively distinct from it's parent species.

Numerous pharmaceuticals are produced this way. For example insulin, which used to be harvested from pigs-- requiring the death of the pigs to get their pancreas-- is now produced in large quantities by GMO microbes. Doing so doesn't make them a different or new species, however.