Advances in the genetic modification of oil palm Denis J. Murphy, Head of Genomics and Computational Biology Research Group, University of South Wales, United Kingdom

Transgenic crop modification uses recombinant DNA methods to alter gene expression in order to create new varieties for breeders that may be either difficult or impossible to produce using conventional approaches. Over the past few decades, transgenic methods have been successfully applied to develop genetically modified (GM) varieties of the major oilseed crops, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower. In this section, the research efforts for production of GM oil palm plants over the past 20 years will be reviewed. Although these efforts have yet to result in stable lines of commercially useful GM varieties of oil palm, there are good prospects that the greatly improved knowledge of genomics, coupled with advanced technologies such as genome editing, will be successful in the future (Murphy, 2015).