Genetic engineering

Genetic engineering is it big business? Did you Know?

Professor Matthew Cobb looks at how genetic engineering became a big business – from the first biotech company that produced human insulin in modified bacteria in the late 1970s to the companies like Monsanto, which developed and then commercialised the first GM crops in the 1990s.

This programme is available NOW on Demand on the BBC Discovery Page and is available until Tuesday 7th December. It will also broadcast on Sunday 5th December in Phuket at 8:30 AM on 91.5 FM and 102.5 FM and Online via the Internet radio portals.

Were the hopes and fears about these products of genetic engineering realised?

Thanks to The State of Things from North Carolina Public Radio WUNC for the interview with Mary-Dell Chilton.

(Picture: DNA molecule, Credit: KTSDesign/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

Genetic engineering is the 2nd in a series last week being Genetics, Dreams and Nightmares, and next week will conclude this 3 part series.

Previously on Discovery

Solar Sails were featured as part of the Curious Cases feature with Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Hannah Fry.

Solar Sails and space elevators science sleuths Dr Adam Rutherford and Dr Hannah Fry investigate everyday mysteries sent in by listeners.

Also, from Curious Cases asks, What’s the point of wasps? asks listener Andrew, who is fed up with being pestered. Do wasps do anything to justify their presence as a picnic menace? Ecologist Seirian Sumner researches social wasp behaviour and champions its existence.

More from our broadcast partners the BBC.

Sunday in Phuket Health Check
Sunday 8:00 AM
BBC Science in Action Sunday in Phuket
Sunday at 9:00 AM
BBC Digital Planet
Sunday at 9:30 AM

Just click the pictures and read more about the Phuket Island Radio EDUtainment programming.