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