Commercial growers of the medicinal plant Artemisia annua wish to rapidly scale up production of a high-yielding cultivar using micropropagation (tissue culture). Describe the sequence of steps required to produce thousands of genetically identical plantlets from a single parent plant, and explain the biological significance of maintaining sterile conditions and the role of plant growth regulators in this process.

To further improve medicinal yield, researchers have successfully introduced a gene encoding a specific sesquiterpene cyclase enzyme from a related species into Artemisia annua. Explain how a recombinant plasmid vector containing this gene is constructed and introduced into the host plant cells, and suggest two ecological or economic advantages of growing this genetically modified variety.