The intention of this revised and augmented edition of the previous Glossary of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering is to provide a convenient reference source for researchers, students and technicians. It also aims to help those whose native language is not English.

In general the Glossary is very user-friendly, easy to read and contains a comprehensive set of useful terms. Most descriptions are accurate, with some exceptions: for example, ‘abiotic’ means non-living and not absence of living organisms; ‘authentic protein’ is not necessarily recombinant protein; the ‘edible vaccine’ entry is misleading, as it suggests that it is already available – to the best of my knowledge it is not as yet commercially available. The more general term for the ‘explosion method’ is ‘microparticle bombardment’; the term ‘living modified organism’ is not restricted to organisms that can endanger biological diversity, in everyday usage LMOs are considered to be the same as GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

The rapid change of biotechnology and its terminology may explain the omission of some important new terms like ‘cisgenesis’, ‘cisgene’, ‘cisgenic plant’, ‘microRNA’ (miRNA)’; ‘non-coding RNA’, and ‘locked nucleic acid’ (LNA) to mention a few. However, what I missed most were traditional terms such as ‘co-existence’, ‘real-time polymerase chain reaction’ or ‘quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction’; ‘three prime untranslated region’ (3’ UTR), and ‘traditional or conventional breeding’.

Overall, the Glossary is a very useful source of definitions of biotechnology processes, especially for people with limited access to the Internet.