“Scientists Worry Over GM Drug Crops“, posted on Environmental Graffiti, briefly covers the news that crops engineered to express pharmaceutical proteins will be field tested this growing season, concentrating on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ reaction. Apparently UCS is taking their typical anti-tech stance, asking the USDA to require all such crops to be grown in greenhouses or underground. I was not able to find any record of UCS’s recent comments.

I’d like to defend myself, as a scientist. I refuse to believe that any scientist or biotech company would purposefully release a dangerous plant into the food supply. Even if you think scientists and biotech companies are unethical, they certainly aren’t stupid. The first company to sell a biotech plant that’s actually dangerous would likely be burnt to the ground by activists before they had time to go bankrupt. While debates over biotech crops continue, no one has ever gotten sick from a GM plant, or any GMO. What I’ve read about proposed biopharma and industrial crops haven’t indicated that this will change.

For example, consider the Amflora potato, developed by BASF. This humble potato will be used to produce starch for industrial applications. Two types of starch are produced in plants naturally: amylose and amylopectin. Amylopectin is the starch that can be used in all sorts of industrial and food applications. Amylose is useful for other purposes, but hinders some of amylopectin’s properties. It must be removed in a process that takes energy, water, and money.

The BASF scientists simply stopped production of the enzyme that makes amylose with an antisense copy of the enzyme’s mRNA. This is the same method used in the tear-free onion. Basically, the antisense copy of the mRNA binds to the natural mRNA for the targeted gene before it can be translated into a protein. It’s very clever because no actual transgenes are needed. More details can be found at BASF and BioPro.

So, what’s the fuss? Pollen spread isn’t an issue because potatoes don’t reproduce by seed, and there are no native potato relatives in Europe for Amflora to “contaminate” anyway. Even if a tuber makes it into the food supply, Amflora potatoes are completely safe to eat, although probably shouldn’t be eaten as a primary food source becasue they don’t have amylose, thus might not be a nutritionally complete carbohydrate. I don’t know of any type of wildlife that exclusively eats potatoes.

Amflora has been ready for years, but still faces regulatory roadblocks in Europe. The European Food Safety Authority declared Amflora potatoes to be safe back in 2005, but the European Commission is just now considering approving it for use, along with four of Monsanto’s insect and herbicide resistant maize varieties. According to Farmers Guardian, “Public health watchdogs and environmental NGOs have voiced concerns, in particular relating to the BASF ‘Amflora’ potato, which contains antibiotic-resistant marker genes. They fear that parts of the potato would be used to feed livestock, ultimately entering the human food chain and subsequently conferring resistance to antibiotics.”

There is absolutely zero evidence that horizontal gene transfer can happen between plants and bacteria in nature. It happens between different bacteria species all the time, but I think we all know that plants are very different from bacteria. It is possible for bacteria to acquire plant genes via horizontal transfer – but only under specially optimized laboratory conditions and when particular genetic “tricks” are used (comment if you’d like more information on the “tricks”). GMO Compass has an excellent article on the safety of antibiotic resistance markers. They explain that two of the most common genes are for resistance to kanamycin and ampicillin. Natural bacteria in the environment already have genes for resistance to these antibiotics in much higher proportions than would ever be expected with horizontal gene transfer from transgenic plants. Regardless, “kanamycin is now rarely prescribed in human medicine. Ampicillin is still used to treat certain infections, but since resistance is so widespread, treatment is usually combined with substances (beta-lactamase inhibitors), which take away the effect of the resistance genes.”

The particular antibiotic resistance gene in Amflora is to kanamycin. I wasn’t able to find statistics on rates of kanamycin proscriptions, but according to a 2007 transcript on the House of Commons website, “there are no licensed products containing kanamycin in the United Kingdom and there are no records of kanamycin having been prescribed in the national health service in the last five years.” Despite all of these facts, Greenpeace and FoE insist that the resistance genes are dangerous. It seems that they would rather have water and energy wasted to extract starch from regular potatoes than back down from their agenda.

Poor farmers all over the world are battling drought, insects, fungi… with their bare hands. They may have access to some pesticides and fertilizers. If they are lucky, their inputs are the right ones, and not too toxic. The farmers certainly aren’t stupid, but they haven’t had access to all the bells and whistles that farmers in the US, Europe, and Australia can choose.

There are many reasons for the disparity, including socio-political problems. The Gates Foundation is funding a new Green Revolution, with the goal of ending hunger in Africa, that includes a build-up of infrastructure with a healthy dollop of plant breeding. They recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work in Africa, so they are “developing appropriate seeds to attain the best yields in the diverse environments of Africa and working to make sure these high-quality seeds are delivered to farmers who need them most.”

The Gates’ program has many facets, but the absence of one is striking. Bowing to efforts of anti-technology activists, the Alliance for a Green Revolution states: “Our mission is not to advocate for or against the use of genetic engineering.” They “will consider funding the development and deployment of such new technologies only after African governments have endorsed and provided for their safe use.” This is sad, because the African governments are held hostage by the same activists on the subject of GMOs. Genetic engineering could bring critical crop adaptations to the people who need them very quickly, much more quickly than depending on traditional breeding or mutation via radiation.

Some people, such as those at Food First, cringe at the mention of the Green Revolution, but I challenge their opinions on the subject. It is unethical to condemn Norm Borlaug for the Green Revolution that he brought about. His calling was to end hunger, using the methods he had. It is unfortunate that he bred lines that are dependent on fertilizer inputs, but the environmental consequences were not known at the time. Regardless, the impetus was to feed the hungry. Today, our knowledge is much greater, so we can do much better – especially with engineered crops that require little-to-no pesticide and fertilizer.

Can we, who enjoy the spoils of technology, prevent that very technology from getting into the hands of the poor?

Monsanto’s patent on the process of transforming plants through the use of Agrobacterium tumefaciens is claimed so broadly that it could exclude all plant transformation processes that use any engineered bacteria to transfer foreign DNA into plant genomes. The other method, biolistics-mediated transformation, was developed by Cornell University but licensed exclusively to DuPont, which has blocked commercial competitors from accessing the technology.

Any research that includes use of any method covered by currently held patents may not be taken to market or distributed in any way. Researchers can ignore patents and continue their work, but they are technically breaking patent law.

Although the patent statute contains a clearly stated research exemption, the 2002 court decision in Madey v. Duke limits the scope of the research exemption to experiments done “solely for amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity, or for strictly philosophical inquiry”. Madey was not a company but a disgruntled ex-faculty member, but the case has important implications for universities and their researchers. The court found that the precedent did “not immunize any conduct that is in keeping with the alleged infringer’s legitimate business, regardless of commercial implications.” Essentially, major research universities often conduct research projects without commercial application, but that research still advances the institution’s educational mission to “increase the status of the institution and lure lucrative research grants, students and faculty.” It is hardly for amusement.

In other words, university researchers can not use any patent-protected technology unless they can prove that their research has no point. They “can be sued for making, using, selling or importing patented technologies, even if they have no intention of commercializing the fruits of the research.”
All of this means that the problems faced by the developers of Golden Rice, the first GMO specifically designed to help the poor, still exist. The following excerpt is from “The IP Handbook of Best Practices” article on biopharming:

An FTO [freedom-to-operate] assessment revealed that Golden Rice was related to over 70 patent applications and issued patents, most notably in the United States and Europe, and that patent applications were owned by over a dozen institutions. Few patents were applied for or issued in developing countries. However, because the material was developed in Europe, it could not be transferred for use in developing countries without proper licenses. There were a few reasons for this, not the least of which was that several material transfer agreements were limited to research use only.

The patent holders did eventually permit Golden Rice to be distributed without licensing fees for humanitarian reasons, but only after a media storm. The final result: Golden Rice still hasn’t been widely distributed, and laypeople the world over don’t trust genetic engineering or the companies involved. The researchers didn’t consider how many patents they might infringe upon, they just wanted to solve a global nutritional problem.
Corporations conduct a FTO analysis before moving forward with research. Can university researchers be expected to do the same? According to The IP Handbook of Best Practices, FTOs can cost $20,000 to $100,000 to conduct. I can’t imagine adding tens of thousands of dollars to already tight grant proposals. No research would ever be funded!
One alternative to patent battles is to develop new techniques that aren’t covered by patents. The non-profit CAMBIA seeks to create open-source alternatives to Agrobacterium. Their work is promising, as reported by BBC News back in 2005 in “Plant biotech goes open-source“, but not mainstream, and still isn’t widely used. Regardless, scientists shouldn’t have to reinvent things before they move forward.
As I’ve shown in this post, patenting prevents GMOs from being created or distributed, unless they have enough market potential for corporations to create them. I’ve always thought that the dearth of intelligently designed genetically engineered organisms was the fault of activists, that public misunderstanding prevented funding of research. Now that I’ve investigated things further, it’s clear that intellectual property law plays a huge part. In fact, the problem of biotechnology lying solely in the hands of corporations is one of the few things that the activists understand.

The maize mini-chromosome, once introduced, behaves much like an ordinary chromosome. It remains distinct from the other chromosomes. Its gene cassette is structurally stable from generation to generation. The genes it carries are expressed and it is transmitted through mitosis and meiosis.

The scientists started a company called Chromatin, which sold non-exclusive rights to Monsanto in May. Other companies are looking to get involved.
I’m really excited about this idea. One of the problems with genetic engineering is our inability to control where a gene inserts into the genome. Mini-chromosomes eliminate that problem and allow the scientist to add many genes instead of just one. It would be nice if they were still hiring when I am ready to graduate!