Biotechnology is on the cusp of the fantastic, at the center of the debate
By GREG KLINE
News-Gazette Staff Writer

   Researchers in a Swiss lab funded by the Rockefeller Foundation announce they've spliced vitamin A-producing genes into rice, a potential solution to a widespread problem with blindness among children in developing countries.
   Frito-Lay tells suppliers it won't buy genetically modified corn for use in its snack products in response to consumer concerns.
   Those stories from earlier this year capture the point at which biotechnology in agriculture stands at the beginning of a new century.
   Critics are raising food safety, environmental and ethical questions about genetically modified plants and animals. There are outcries over the potential for creating dangerous "Franken-foods," de-mands from Vermont to California for product labeling to cover genetic modifications, and calls for bans of altered U.S. corn and soybeans in Europe and other parts of the world.
   Meanwhile, scientists are poised to advance the state of the art as never before, to create better tasting, faster growing, more nutritious and healthier foods, even foods that will protect us against illness.
   Researchers such as Harris Lewin and Matthew Wheeler, scientists at the University of Illinois who work with genetics, understand the debate.
   "People need to have their questions answered," said Wheeler, a reproductive biology professor and director of the UI's Transgenic Animal Facility. "Those are prudent questions. They're the kinds of questions I'd be asking if I weren't in this area.
   "People who are involved in agriculture ... we're all interested in producing wholesome food," he added. "The scientists who work in this are very careful."
   We've been modifying, and eating modified, plants and animals for eons, the UI researchers and others noted.
   "Most of the food we consume is the result of some hybrid technology," Wheeler said. "Pigs of the 1900s had a lot more fat. Red Delicious apples? They're all clones. Native bananas have seeds that are like flint. You couldn't eat them."
   The difference is in the techniques scientists use to make modifications today and the speed and precision with which they can do it.
   Slow crossbreeding to make existing desired qualities predominant in a population over generations is being superseded by the ability to identify the genes that govern desirable characteristics and to choose the best breeding stock based on its genetic makeup.
   Moreover, scientists now can insert, for instance, three genes directly into rice so it's rich in beta carotene, a source of vitamin A, even though the quality didn't exist at all in the grain before.
   "You can make something ... new," said Lewin, a UI immunogenetics professor and director of the UI's Biotechnology Center and W.M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics. He sees this as the most exciting time ever in biology and perhaps all of science.
   "The science is really maturing," he said. "There are real products coming out of the research. I think in 20 years, everything's going to be (genetically modified). You won't be able to find (an agricultural product) that's not."
   Biology is metamorphosing into "bioinformatics" as scientists map the gene structures of humans, animals, plants and other things and marry that mass of data with a quantum growth in computing power to analyze it.
   In relatively short order, researchers see such things on the horizon as hepatitis B vaccine, containing bananas, and other foods with pharmaceutical benefits.
   A human gene has been introduced in cows to make their milk better for use in infant formulas.
   Cows also have been genetically altered to give their milk a protein that improves digestion in humans with digestive problems, such as AIDS sufferers.
   A gene from the Arctic Flounder has been inserted in tomatoes to try to improve their resistance to frost.
   Scientists are working on slow-growing dwarf grass that has to be mowed only twice a year.
   Researchers have produced swine whose tissues are imbued with proteins that could discourage the human body from rejecting them, raising the possibility of interspecies organ transplants.
   The possibilities seem almost endless.
   And they worry some people who say we don't yet know enough about the potential side effects of such genetic manipulation on human health and the environment.
   Critics, such as the environmental group Greenpeace, point to some disquieting signs: a toxic substance that appeared in an experiment with genetically engineered yeast, a drop in the fertility of petunias to which a maize gene was added.
   At a conference in Urbana recently, Marc Lappe of the California-based Center for Ethics and Toxics, said genetic engineering that made soybeans resistant to the herbicide Roundup may suppress potential heart disease- and cancer-combating qualities in the beans.
   A Cornell University study raised the specter of a decline in the monarch butterfly population as a result of the butterflies' larvae consuming pollen from Bt corn genetically engineered to kill corn borers.
   In addition, opponents worry that much of the research is now in the control of large, profit-driven multinational companies, loathe to share details for competitive reasons and with a checkered track record where the public good is concerned. That's also a change from the past, when improved seeds and breeds tended to be generated by land grant universities, such as the UI, and labs funded by the government or philanthropic foundations.
   "Corporate values and public concerns are a bad match," Lappe, a former UI medical school lecturer, said in touching on the issue at the Urbana conference.
   That has opponents calling for more stringent government oversight and product labeling.
   Some critics are unlikely to be mollified no matter what, however.
   No less than Prince Charles has said genetic manipulation "takes mankind into realms that belong to God and God alone."
   Bruce Chassy, head of the UI food science and human nutrition department, said existing genetically modified organisms present no known food safety problems. The likelihood they will in the future is small, he said.
   Nonetheless, Chassy and others said the views of the critics need to be addressed if high-tech agricultural products are to win acceptance, especially in the export market. The environmental questions, harder to get a handle on than food safety issues, warrant further study in particular, they said.
   "I think you have to view agricultural biotechnology as really in its infancy," Chassy said. "We ultimately could be in the position of not having to use any chemical inputs to control insects and weeds. That has to appeal to any environmentalist."
   Such benefits are likely to be the key to the general acceptance of genetically modified organisms. So far, as in the case of Bt corn and Roundup Ready soybeans, the developments have mostly profited the companies that sell the altered products, and benefited farmers, but shown little direct benefit for consumers or society.
   "Any time you have a new technology, people tend to be worried about it," said Gerald Nelson, a UI agricultural economics professor. "We need to have really clear benefits, really strong valuable benefits, to overcome the uncertainty."

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