ABSTRACT
This chapter shows what is considered important from the point of view of plant biotechnology and which contributions can be made already or are in the making. This way one will be better informed to evaluate this progress. The chapter provides quick overview of what has been done here in Ghent at Plant Genetic Systems in the last ten years. Much of it also looked like science fiction around 1980, but now it has become real. The chapter also provides some example of gene engineering: isolating genes and expressing them in plants and in that way creating other plants, each time by introducing a bacterial gene and expressing this in the plant. It talks about engineering plants for nematode-resistance, a type of research that is going on in the authors' department. Nematocides are used as fumigation against nematodes, worms in the soil that attack potatoes particularly. These nematocides are extremely toxic and indeed should be forbidden.
