| FRANCE APPROVES NEW GM FIELD TRIALS
Early this
week, France approved new field trials of genetically modified
(GM) crops. According to the farm ministry, as cited
by Reuters, the field experiments will include eight types
of GM maize and is part of the government's biotech research
program. These field trials aim to observe the “behavior” of
the new strains in actual field conditions. Located mostly
in the south-west of the country, these field trials were resumed
after the first public consultation, via the internet.
The French government previously conducted an internet consultation
with the public before approving the field trial requests.
The government was said to receive at least 2,700 emails from
the public, 18 of which were specifically concerned about the
2004 crop trial program.
Further, this decision of the French government was also made
weeks after the European Union (EU) lifted its five-year ban
on approvals for biotech food varieties by clearing imports
of a new type of canned sweetcorn.
Read
the news release at http://www.forbes.com/markets/
newswire/2004/06/01/rtr1390905.html.
USDA CALLS FOR REGULATORY RESPONSIBILITY FOR GM CROPS
Incidents
like the StarLink corn highlights the fact that “we
needed to really understand, better define the appropriate
role of government regulatory systems to make sure that we
didn't undermine the consumer confidence in our food supply.” This
was stressed by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Secretary Ann M. Veneman to The Advisory Committee on Biotechnology
in Washington, DC.
Calling
these incidents as wake-up calls, Veneman said that the USDA
had taken the lead in bringing an inter-agency process
to determine the appropriate regulatory responsibility necessary
for “the diverse nature of biotech that we're dealing
with today.”
Veneman noted that the USDA has taken several steps to build
regulations, enhance permit systems for plant-made pharmaceuticals
and industrials, increase inspections at the sites, and train
personnel involved in field tests. She announced that in the
next few weeks, efforts will be done to bolster transparency
and the regulatory system.
In the same meeting, Veneman announced the Norman Borlaug
International Science and Technology Fellows Program. This
program will fund scientific training and exchanges at U.S.
universities, USDA and its agencies, research centers, nonprofit
institutions and private companies. She projects as many as
100 Borlaug fellows a year.
For the full transcription of her speech, visit
http://www.usda.gov/Newsroom/0220.04.html.
NEW GUIDELINES FOR RISK ASSESSMENT OF LMOS
Some 130
countries have adopted an international standard on how to
assess the risks of living modified organisms (LMOs)
to plants. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently
came out with the guidelines after the release of its annual
report “The State of Food and Agriculture 2003-04” which
calls for adequate biosafety regulations. The guidelines also
cover other LMOs that may be harmful to plants, such as insects,
fungi and bacteria.
"Internationally accepted guidelines will help countries
to reduce the risks of releasing LMOs that are weedy and could
seriously harm our crop and plant ecosystems," said Niek
van der Graaff, Chief of the FAO Plant Protection Service.
FAO explained that a country may use the guidelines to determine
which LMOs pose a threat and, if necessary, can subsequently
prohibit or restrict their import and domestic use. Developing
countries can now use the same risk analysis criteria as developed
countries.
For more information contact Erwin Northoff, FAO Information
Officer, at erwin.northoff@fao.org. For the FAO release, visit
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2004/
43684/index.html.
NEW CSPI REPORT ON BIOPHARMING
"When non-food crops like tobacco can be used for biopharming,
it is unnecessarily risky to use crops like corn or rice without
a much stronger and more transparent regulatory system. It
would be a public relations catastrophe for both the biotechnology
industry and the food industry if even minuscule amounts of
vaccines or other drugs ended up in (the) cereal,” says
Gregory Jaffe, director, biotechnology project, at the Center
for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Washington DC, USA,
and author of the report entitled “Sowing Secrecy: The
Biotech Industry, USDA, and America's Secret Pharm Belt.”
According to Jaffe, food crops should not be used for biopharming
unless protection could be assured through a strong regulatory
system. He added that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA),
and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should conduct the
necessary environmental and food-safety risk analyses before
permits are issued, or crops are approved to produce substances
commercially. Jaffe also suggested that the entire permit process
should be open and transparent.
At present, the USDA has received 16 new applications for
biopharming permits in the past 12 months. About two-thirds
of those applications involved a food crop such as corn, rice
or barley. Six of these permit applications involved genetically
engineered (GE) corn, two involved GE barley, and one permit
application each involved GE rice, safflower, and Indian mustard.
However, it was observed that details about the proposed crop
acreage nor the trial sites were not disclosed.
The
full report can be downloaded at http://cspinet.org/
new/pdf/pharmareport.pdf.
While, the CSPI website is at http://www.cspinet.org.
GREATER BIOTECH OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW EU MEMBERS
Industry observers believe that the addition of 10 countries
from central and eastern Europe into the European Union will
create a wider market for biotechnology companies. In an article
in the journal Nature, Sabine Louet noted that the EU enlargement
will bring more opportunities and greater visibility to partner
with a wider network.
This development
is expected to favor smaller companies as established companies
have already set up subsidiaries in the
United States, Canada and western Europe to offset the problem
of not being internationally recognized due to the perception
that they are on the "other side of the iron curtain.”
Despite the many advantages of joining the EU, companies in
accession countries see the compliance with Brussels' bureaucracy
as a major drawback Nevertheless, industry insiders noted that
the enlargement process will hopefully bring more venture capitalist
investors to their countries. In addition, these countries
will now be in a position to exploit advantages that are linked
to their location.
Among the 10 new countries are Slovakia, Hungary, and Estonia
who are into biotechnology research.
Read the full article online at http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/
DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v22/n5/full/nbt0504-
493.html#top.
GENE TO REGULATE PROGRAMMED CELL DEATH IN PLANT EMBRYO
Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
have succeeded in isolating a novel gene that regulates cell
death in plant embryos. They hope the new knowledge about how
programmed cell death is regulated can be exploited to increase
production and bolster resistance in plants.
Working with the Durham University, England, and the Karolinska
Institute, Stockholm, the team discovered programmed cell death
in plant embryos and were able to identify the first gene that
regulates this cell death. Programmed cell death is a natural
and vital process during the life cycle of multicellular organisms.
Among other purposes, it regulates the form of organisms during
certain developmental stages and removes superfluous or damaged
cells.
The discovery
is reported in the journal Current Biology in an article
entitled “Metacaspase-dependent programmed
cell death is essential for plant embryogenesis.” For
more information contact Carin Wrange of the Swedish Research
Council at Carin.Wrange@info.slu.se.
NEW RICE GENETIC STOCK FROM ARS
The rice genetic stock, called Guichao 2 eui, is the latest
discovery by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the chief
scientific research agency of the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA). This discovery marks the first time a gene for a key
trait, called elongated uppermost internode (eui), has been
found in an indica rice - a type of rice grown worldwide.
The "eui" trait
is said to be beneficial for better pollen transfer in hybrid
rice seed production because it produces
taller male line panicles (the plant's flowering heads). Likewise,
this trait can also be used to raise the female panicles and
make them more available for pollination.
The Guichao
2 eui is the 11th addition to the new rice collection repository,
called “Genetic Stocks-Oryza” (GSOR)
found at the ARS Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center
in Stuttgart, Arkansas, USA. This genetic stock collection
helps preserve germplasm, and has characteristics which breeders
can use to create new lines.
Seeds are available upon request through the ARS Germplasm
Resources Information Network at: http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/ or through the GSOR repository at http://www.dbnrrc.ars.usda.gov/gsor/.
THE 'OMICS' SCIENCES
The 'omics' sciences applied in biotechnology are genomics,
proteomics, and metabolomics. Genomics is a new science that
deals with the discovery and noting of all the sequences in
the entire genome of a particular organism. In crop agriculture,
the main purpose of the application of genomics is to gain
a better understanding of the whole genome of plants to be
able to identify important genes that may be targeted to produce
more nutritious and safe food.
On the other hand, the goal of proteomics is to understand
how the structure and function of proteins allow them to do
what they do, what they interact with, and how they contribute
to life processes. Proteomics can be applied to map protein
modification to determine the difference between a wild type
and a genetically modified organism (GMO). It is also used
to study protein-protein interactions involved in plant defense
reactions.
Metabolomics
is one of the newest 'omics' sciences, and is aimed at determining
a sample's profile of compounds at a specified
time under specific environmental condition. It is used to
determine the differences between the levels of thousands of
molecules between healthy and diseased plants. The technology
can also be used to determine the nutritional difference between
traditional and genetically modified (GM) crops, and in identifying
plant defense metabolites.
Learn more about the 'omics' sciences by downloading the latest
Pocket Knowledge (K) from the International Service for the
Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) Global Knowledge
Center for Crop Biotechnology at http://www.isaaa.org/kc.
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