Genetically Modified Organisms

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Genetically Modified Organisms

• The GM Debate
• Separating fact from fiction!

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What is it?

• GM technology is not a single methodology but a
  group of methods which allow the manipulation of
  genes.
• Normally it involves the insertion of a
  functional gene (plus its promoter, the
  equivalent of an on/off switch for the gene, and
  a marker gene) into the genetic code of a crop
  species

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What can we do with GM?
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What can we do with GM?

• Crop plants resistant to herbicides

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Crop plants resistant to herbicides

• Poisons that generally affect only unwanted
  plants, or weeds, are called herbicides.
• A growing number of weeds are developing
  resistance to herbicides.
• The gene that confers this resistance has been
  introduced to a number of crop plants.

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Crop plants resistant to herbicides

• This means that growers can put the herbicide
  directly on the crop. It kills all unwanted
  plants. Yet, the crop remains unharmed.
• Corn, cotton and soybeans have all been
  genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant.

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Crop plants resistant to herbicides

• About seventy-five percent of all soybeans and
  sixty-five percent of all cotton grown in America
  is GM for herbicide resistance.

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Crop plants resistant to herbicides

• Scientists developed another kind of genetically
  engineered corn to resist insects.

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Improving crop quality

• Tomatoes can be manipulated to improve the crop
  quality
• Tomato pastes have been modified with a gene
  which inhibited the production of the enzyme
  which softened cell walls in the tomato.
• The GM gene therefore served to maintain firmness
  in the tomato as the fruit ripened.

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Other crop improvements

• High-lysine corn products that improve the
  nutritional value of animal feed
• Improved soybeans and canola for healthier oils
  and protein,

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Pharmaceutical products

• Many medicines have traditionally been extracted
  from plants, microorganisms or animals.
• It may not be possible to produce enough of the
  medicine to treat all the people who need it

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Pharmaceutical products

• The cloning of human genes in bacteria enables
  large amounts of many medicines (e.g. human
  growth hormone).
• The treatment of dwarfism with growth hormone
  used to involve extract the pituitary glands from
  cadavers.

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Pharmaceutical products

• Organisms can be genetically modified either to
  increase the amount of medically useful products,
  such as antibiotics, that they produce naturally,
  or to produce entirely new medicines.
• Plants are starting to be used to produce
  vaccines for a variety of human and animal
  diseases.

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What are the ethical issues?
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Is it ethical?

• Views for
• This issue has been carefully considered by
• many independent ethical bodies including the
  Pope.
• None has found any reason to consider GM
  technology as unacceptable in principle.
• All technologies if handled properly benefit
  humankind. It is unethical to deny the
  exploration of the potential of such beneficial
  technologies.

• View against
• Humans have always tampered with nature but
  GM represents a fundamental change in the way we
  deal with nature.
• Some people believe that GM is unethical. Food
  containing GM material must be labelled so that
  these people can avoid GM if they wish.

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WHAT DOES THE GM FUTURE HOLD?

• Views for
• GM offer exciting opportunities for a more
  sustainable future, hope of alleviating hunger
  around the globe, and a way of coping with the
  projected major increase of the world's
  population.
• We have an obligation to evaluate all avenues
  that may achieve these goals.

• View against
• The unknowns surrounding GM and the risks that
  have not yet been fully understood ,we may be
  leaving a worrying legacy for the future.
• We could be posing major environmental,
  socio-economic and even health problems for
  future generations.
• There is no strong evidence that GM offers a more
  sustainable future.

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What about the developing world?

• Views for
• Countries should be allowed to decide for
  themselves without being dictated to by largely
  overfed societies.
• GM crops provide an opportunity for increasing
  food supply to malnourished people.
• Two-thirds of the farmers currently growing GM
  crops live in resource-poor countries, including
  those in Africa.

• Views against
• Africa is being used as a dumping ground for GM
  foods.
• The people who benefit are not the poor but the
  biotechnology companies and the seed
  distributors.

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Is patenting genes democratic?

• Views for
• Patenting is an essential part of the process of
  investing in the research and development that
  leads to the discovery of something new.
• Patents last about 20 years, which is a short
  time in the context of a plant breeding
  timetable. After the patent ends, everyone has
  access to the intellectual property.

• Views against
• There is a real question as to whether anyone
  should have the right to own genes.
• Patenting allows industry to take control of and
  exploit organisms and genetic material, treating
  them as exclusive private property that can be
  sold to or withheld from farmers, breeders,
  scientists and doctors.
• For example, technology fees on seeds deprive
  farmers of their generations-old right to replant
  and exchange their seeds.