Genetic Modification – Frankenfood or Famine Relief?
December 6th 2010 04:19
Frankenfood created by mad scientists?
The first scientific research on genetic modification began in the 1860’s. Gregor Mendel, the Abbot of Brun Monastery in Czechoslovakia, was intrigued by heritable characteristics. He cultivated peas with white flowers and coloured flowers, transferring pollen from different types, producing seeds from different combinations. His plants obeyed fixed laws, allowing him to predict what the offspring would look like. These became known as ‘Mendels Laws of Inheritance’ when he published his discoveries in 1866.
One doesn't take on the genetic traits of a chicken by eating an egg
The number of humans on the planet is rising relentlessly. By 2025 there will be an estimated eight and a half billion hungry mouths to feed! One way to boost food production would be to better protect crops from pests. Gene splicing methods allow the addition of a gene that produces proteins which disrupt the digestive system of insects, but are harmless to humans. Such genetically engineered crops do not require insecticides as the proteins are present throughout the life of the plant, from seed to germination, harvest and even in storage.
Fated to die from blowfly maggots?
Australia has over six thousand species of flies. The most destructive is the introduced green blowfly. For sheep, blowflies mean great suffering. The flies lay eggs in the moist wool around the rear, and when the maggots hatch, they eat into the living sheep. If untreated, the sheep will die an agonizing death. Scientists are working to genetically engineer flies with characteristics such as inherited early blindness.
Biotechnician Dr D Tripleberg
Wheat is the worlds most important cereal crop. About twelve thousand years ago a natural cross of the many species in the Triticae family became widespread. All modern wheat cultivars come from this single species, which could result in a disaster similar to the Irish Potato Famine. Among the wild grasses of Iraq are hundreds of close relatives of wheat, containing a vast reservoir of genes. Dozens of these are resistant to diseases such as wheat rust and powdery mildew. Australian research is mostly devoted to screening for salt tolerance as soil salinity is becoming a serious problem in many Australian wheat growing regons.
It has taken humans over ten millennia to modify wheat from a scruffy grass with edible seeds into the productive crop that it is today. Some scientists argue that genetic engineering is just an extension of the process of genetic modification. A process that has gone hand in hand with domestication and agriculture, the cornerstones of human civilization.
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