IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 54
the age of plenTy
Idealistic academics first developed golden
Vainstein has a solution to the
rice, and the nonprofit International Rice Research
other problem with the earlier gen-
Institute (IRRI), in the Philippines, has taken the lead
eration of genetic transformation:
in evaluating the crop over the past decade. Yet
despite the grain's golden pedigree, Greenpeace
having to grow the modified plant
and other anti-GM groups have vehemently opposed
from a cell culture. His lab and the
its cultivation.
Israeli biotech company Danziger
Eero Nissilä, head of IRRI's Plant Breeding,
Genetics, and Biotechnology Division, explains
Innovations have invented a strain
that his breeders typically make use of rice's huge
of virus that infects whole leaves or
and diverse gene pool. IRRI scientists searching
even an entire plant with a tempo-
for a beneficial trait like drought resistance can
usually find it in some obscure strain of rice and inrary genetic blueprint for an endo-
troduce it to more common rice strains via traditional
nuclease. So for a short period, the
crossbreeding. But in some cases, he says, the trait
cell's own machinery builds the en-
is simply not to be found. Rice enriched with betacarotene could be produced only by using transzyme, which does its gene- editing
genic tools, Nissilä says.
job. The virus burns itself out, and
The IRRI recently finished field trials with golden
the infected plant's seeds carry the
rice in the Philippines, and government regulators in
that country may soon become the first to approve
genetic modification forward. (The
the transgenic crop for general use. Bangladesh and
first genetically modified pepper is
Indonesia are also considering approval. But there
now in the works at Vainstein's lab.)
have been setbacks as well, most recently in China.
An uproar arose there last December after Greenpeace
A side effect of the new, more-precise
accused researchers of testing golden rice on schoolgenome-editing technology is that it's
children without their families' permission.
In the controversial arena of genetically modified
raising questions about how genetically
Nissilä is dismayed by the fear surrounding the
(GM) foods, even the most well-intentioned projects
crop. "Certainly we need to be careful," he says.
modified crops should be regulated by
meet passionate resistance. The shining example
"There needs to be a very strict approval process."
of this is golden rice.
governments. For instance, tolerance
But, he says, study after study has proven to his satThis grain is named for its brilliant yellow hue, which it
to the herbicide glyphosate has so far
owes to a genetic trick. Back in 1999, researchers fig- isfaction that golden rice poses no threat to human
health or to the environment and that it will confer
been engineered into commercial
ured out how to insert genes from the yellow daffodil
significant benefits. "For a scientist like myself, then,
and a soil bacterium into the rice genome, allowing
crops by transferring in a gene from
that's it, it should be approved," he says. He adds,
the rice to make beta-carotene. Because the human
a bacterium. But some plants, as a
in a pained voice, that golden rice's travails around
body converts beta-carotene to vitamin A, researchers
the world don't bode well for GM foods in general:
growing glyphosate-tolerance prob-
believe this strain of rice could help alleviate vitamin-A
deficiencies in the developing world, which cause more "If this humanitarian crop will not be approved, then
lem shows, already carry a much less
what will be?" -eliza stricklanD
than 250 000 children to go blind each year.
potent variant of that gene, explains
Jennifer Kuzma, an associate professor
in the Center for Science, Technology,
and Public Policy at the University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities. If scientists
were to edit the plant's own gene us-
ing the new molecular methods so that it functioned more like the
The line between traditional breeding and genetic modification is
bacterium's gene, would the resulting resistant plant really be GM?
indeed getting very blurry-which is not to say that genetic modifica-
Here's one that's even more of a head scratcher: Plants that
tion is going away. Many farmers and technologists don't see a way
get their traits via mutation by chemicals or radiation have been
to feed an inevitably more populous planet without it. Some even
around for more than half a century and haven't been regulated
see it as a necessity for a future after oil extraction becomes uneco-
as GM. But endonuclease methods allow scientists to target a
nomical. Marc Van Montagu, who codiscovered the agrobacteria
mutation-a change in a single letter of the genome, say-to a pre-
transformation method, is convinced that "plants will be the raw
materials for our chemical industry." Syngenta has already developed
cise location in the chromosome. Should the result be considered
a breed of maize engineered to make the amylase enzyme, an addi-
a GM plant or just the equivalent of a really lucky mutation? "There
isn't a bright line," says Kuzma. But, she says, "I'm not sure the
tive that helps break down corn sugars in corn-to-biofuel factories.
public will make a distinction" between the old GM and the new.
"Twenty-first-century plants," says Van Montagu, "will be
Already, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has quietly decided
GM plants." n
not to regulate at least one experimental crop in part because
scientists used one of the new precision methods in its creation.
post your comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/geneticfood0613
54
|
jun 2013
|
north american
|
SPectrum.ieee.orG
the GolDen riCe humanitarian BoarD
golden
grains of
discord
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geneticfood0613
http://SPectrum.ieee.orG
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2013
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 1
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 2
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 3
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 4
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 5
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 6
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 7
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 8
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 9
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 10
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 11
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 12
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 13
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 14
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 15
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 16
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 17
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 18
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 19
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 20
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 21
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 22
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 23
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 24
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 25
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 26
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 27
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 28
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 29
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 30
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 31
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 32
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 33
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 34
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 35
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 36
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 37
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 38
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 39
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 40
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 41
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 42
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 43
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 44
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 45
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 46
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 47
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 48
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 49
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 50
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 51
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 52
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 53
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 54
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 55
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 56
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 57
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 58
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 59
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 60
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 61
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 62
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 63
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 64
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 65
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 66
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 67
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 68
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 69
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 70
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 71
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 72
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 73
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 74
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 75
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 76
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 77
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 78
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 79
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 80
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 81
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 82
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 83
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 84
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 85
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 86
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 87
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 88
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1217
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1117
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0917
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0817
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0717
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0617
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0517
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0417
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0317
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0217
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0117
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1216
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1116
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0916
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0816
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0716
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0616
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0516
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0416
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0316
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0216
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0116
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1215
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1115
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0915
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0815
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0715
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0615
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0515
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0415
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0315
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0215
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0115
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1214
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1114
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0914
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0814
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0714
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0614
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0514
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0414
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0314
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0214
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0114
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1213
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1113
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0913
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0813
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0713
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0613
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0513
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0413
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0313
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0213
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0113
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1212
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0912
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0812
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0712
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0612
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0512
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0412
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0312
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0212
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1111
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1011
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0911
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0811
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0711
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0611
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0511
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0411
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0311
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0111
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1110
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0810
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0710
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0610
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0510
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0410
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0310
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0110
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1209
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1109
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0909
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0809
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0709
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0609
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0509
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0409
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0309
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0209
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0109
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1208
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1108
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0908
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0808
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0608
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0508
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0408
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0308
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0208
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0108
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1207
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1107
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1007
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0907
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0807
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0707
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0607
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0507
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0407
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0307
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0207
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0107
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com