Plant geneticists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, may have solved one of the fundamental problems in genetically engineered or modified (also known as GM or GMO or Biotech) crop agriculture: genes leaking into the environment. In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Rutgers Professor Pal Maliga and research associate Zora Svab advocate an alternative and more secure means of introducing genetic material into a plant. In GM crops today, novel genes are inserted into a cell nucleus but can eventually wind up in pollen grains or seeds that make their way out into the environment.