Science / Medicine : A Weekly Roundup of News, Features and Commentary : Petunia Red-Faced, Thanks to Genetics

Genetic engineers, using powerful methods of molecular biology to alter the genetic endowment of a living organism, have brought forth a red petunia. It used to be pink.

The achievement is just one more bit of evidence that biologists are beginning to understand something about how life works.

They knew that a certain pale pink variety of petunia possesses a substance that would turn red if acted on by a certain enzyme. The petunia had no genes for this enzyme. Corn, they knew, did.

All they had to do was extract the corn gene and insert it into cells taken from pink petunias. The cells were nurtured to grow into complete petunia plants. When they bloomed, presto! The flowers were brick red. The feat was reported in Nature magazine by German scientists.