TEC154 2010S, Class 32: Biotechnology (2) Overview: Admin: * We'll try the Feminist approaches readings this Friday * Stuff due! Quick Status Report "We have some unfinished business with regards to biotechnology." "We are all participating in an ongoing experiment of the safety of many of these plants". * We eat these products in the form of corn oil, soybean oil, corn meal, etc. (Soy and Corn are part of lots of processed products.) * U.S. has no labeling of food products as containing genetic material. * EU has strict labeling requirements * Note: So far, there seems to be no massive Golden Rice * Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer wanted to address problem in the developing world - Lack of Vitamin A * Lack of Vitamin A leads to blindness * Causes 1-2 million early deaths each year in the developing world * Their solution: Get beta-carotene, a precursor to Vitamin A, into rice * Rice is a staple food across the world. * Golden rice is more complex * What we've seen so far has been inserting one gene * To get beta carotene, you need multiple genes in a pathway so that they express in a pathway. * They succeeded. * However, it required IP from a variety of sources * These pieces were freely given to them for research purposes * They met a lot of resistance * Even though they were intending to do this freely * Greenpeace (and others) objected * There's not enough vitamin A * But at least there's some * And there's been improvement * We should be addressing the problem in another way * Enough variety in diet (e.g., veggies) * Vitamin supplements * IP was another issue * Monsanto donated their IP (at least granted royalty-free licenses) * Other corporations were not so clearly generous * Note: Work was funded by a number of governments, who had to pay patent fees in some case * Issue: Productizing it * It's sad that it had such a difficult road to travel as it may deter others from doing similar humanitarian agricultural bioengineering Question: What is a promoter region (the thing which Monsanto owned a patent on) * DNA is a sequence of bases (A, C, G, and T) * Much of it is junk * Some parts of it code for proteins (the genes) * A promoter reason upstream turns on the translation of the genes to proteins How does Monsanto have a patent on a gene, given that it's a product of nature? * Patent is a complex thing * Many argue that because of the effort of extracting a gene, it is worthy of patent, and the PTO (and the courts) seem to have agreed Genetically engineered crops have various audiences: * Herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant crops are for the producer * Things like golden rice are intended for the "end-user" * We might care about the things for the processor * Changing the amount of oil or starch * Changing characteristics of the oil (e.g., less saturated) Another idea: Edible vaccines * Old idea, by Charles Aronson (?) * A way to get vaccines to children in the developing world * Incorporate pathogens in the genome * The body will develop antigens * First trials were with potatos * A bad idea: No one eats raw potatoes, and cokoing the potatoes kills the antigen * These days, bananas seem to be the primary host * One big hurdle: Controlling dosage * Different bananas may have different amounts of the pathogen * How do we control how many bananas someone eats? Another domain: Producing protein, such as pharmaceutical protein * Right now, bit vats of GEO bacteria * But that's expensive - Easy to contaminate the big vats * Now moving to plants and even animals. * Monsanto has a process in which you can put the gene for the protein of your choice into corn ipt - Integrated Protein Technologies * Seems to have been a failed business * Other plants used, too * E.g., tobacco * Used also to produce antibodies * Leading to the wonderful term "Plantibodies" * Moving to livestock, too. * Typically, we work to get the proteins in the milk. * Pigs (rare, but initial testing) * Sheep * PPL therapeutics, the cloners of Dolly, were leaders in this issue * They are now bankrupt, too * It's not clear how many transgenic herds are around A related issue: Xenotransplantation * Transplanting from one species to another * Swine are being closely examined as possible organ donors for humans * Right now, any organ taken from a pig are almost certainly going to be rejected as foreign by the body. * There are chemical markers on the cells that identify it as being foreign, or of a species, or ... * One solution: Knock out the genes that generate this protein * PPL created double-gene-knockout pigs * Still rejected by body in baboon transplantation * But lonter until rejection * Once you have a good pig, easy to clone copies * Not anywhere close to clinical trials with humans * Note: This research is *very* expensive On to cloning * Issue: Once we have differetiated cells (e.g., skin, liver, etc.), they've turned off most of the genes * But the Dolly cloning was done with a differentiated cell. * Take an egg, throw out half. * Put the nuclerus of the differentiated cell in the nuclearus of the egg. throw out half. * Put the nuclerus of the differentiated cell in the nuclearus of the egg. * The egg then does its normal cell division. * Since Dolly, other things have been cloned * Goats - Genzyme Transgenics Corp. * Your pet (dog or cat) - Genetic Savings and Clone * The company succeeded with cats * Less luck with dogs * Bankrupt * At least one dog has been cloned (in South Korea) Human cloning * One form of human cloning is easy: Separate the cells in the embryo at an early stage and store all but one copy. * If you want another copy of your child, you grab one of the stored copies and implant it. * Ethics of human cloning is complex * What are reasonable ways ot use these clones? * There's evidence that people do things like have additional children to provide bone marrow Contamination issues * When you have a wind-polinated crop, like corn, it's easy to transmit the transgene * What happens if it spreads to a neighbor's organic crop * Crossing species * Particularly related species, such as the progenitors of modern species * For example, when we have problems with a modern species, we often go back to the progenitors to rebuild a new version * If the progenitors are contaminated, The Percy Schmeiser case: * He did not use Roundup-Ready corn * But his crop was cross-contaminated * When he used saved seed the next year, Monsanto sued about use of their IP * Canadian Supreme Court ruled in Monsanto's faovr * Why did Monsanto sue? To preserve its patent The StarLink case: * StarLink corn intended only for cattle consumption * But mixed in with the corn for the food supply stream - in taco shells, corn chips, and so on Our final thought, from Marshall Nirenberg in Science The point which deserves special emphasis in that man may be able to program his own ceils with synthetic infcrmaticn long before he wiU be able to assess adequately the long-term consequences of such altera- tions. long before he will be able to formulate goals. and long before he can resolve the ethical and moral problems which wiil be raise& When man becomes capable of instructing his own cells, he must refrain from doing so until he has sufficient wisdom to use this knowledge for the benefit of mankind. I state this problem well in advance of the need to resolve it. because decisions concerning the application of this knowledge must ultimately be made by society, and only an informed society can make such decisions wisely. -- Science, 11 August 1967, Volume 157, Number 3789