The techniques involve highly sophisticated manipulations of genetic material and other biologically important chemicals.
Genes are the chemical blueprints that determine an organism's traits.
Moving genes from one organism to another transfers those traits. Such an artificial technology is radically different from traditional plant and animal breeding. Novel organisms Nature can produce organisms with new gene combinations through sexual reproduction. A brown cow bred to a yellow cow may produce a calf of a completely new color. But reproductive mechanisms limit the number of new combinations.