plant biotechnology what is plant biotechnology and why is it useful to me??
Post on 22-Dec-2015
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TRANSCRIPT
Let’s define:
Plant biotechnology: a rapidly expanding field within
biotechnology that chiefly involves the introduction of foreign genes into economically important plant species, resulting in crop improvement and the production of novel products in plants
Timeline
The genetic manipulation of plants has been going on since prehistoric times when early farmers began carefully selecting and maintaining seed from their best crop to plant for next season.
Now genes from sexually incompatible plants, animals, bacteria and insects can be introduced into plants
Agricultural Benefits of Biotechnology
“Biotechnology is the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of
agriculture.”
-Bruce ChassyProfessor of Microbiology
University of Illinois
Growth of Biotechnology
In 2002… 75% of US soybean acres were planted with
biotech soybeans 71% of US cotton acreage were insect and
herbicide resistant biotech cotton varieties 34% of all corn acres were biotech corn
In 2001, biotech crop planting was up 20%, with greatest percentage growth in developing countries
Stats
US biotech crops planted in US produced additional 4 billion pounds of food and fiber on same acreage
Improved farm income by $1.5 billion
Reduced pesticide use by 46 million lbs.
Biotech in Third World
UN estimates nearly 800 million people around the world are undernourished
About 400 million women of child-bearing age are iron deficient, exposing their babies to various birth defects
Over 100 million children suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, the leading cause of blindness
Tens of millions of people around the world suffer from other major ailments or nutritional deficiencies caused by lack of food
How does biotech help?
Improves farming productivity in places where there are food shortages
Genetically modified food such as ‘golden rice’ and ‘protato’ that have increased levels of nutrients
Biotech and the environment
Thanks to biotechnology, corn is the first renewable raw material that can replace petrochemicals in fibers and plastics
Corn resin could be used to make fibers, plastic containers, and other products
Since corn resin is biodegradable, can dramatically reduce pollution and world’s reliance on crude oil to make polyesters, plastics, and other products
Also, an increase in environmentally friendly conservation tillage practices is made possible through the adoption of biotech crops
As a result…
Nearly 1 billion tons of soil saved per year Lowered maintenance costs for activities
such as dredging rivers and treating drinking water, saving $3.5 billion in sedimentation costs in 2002
Reduced levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
306 million gallons of fuel saved in 2002 by reducing number of tractor passes needed to control weeds
CHARLES ARNTZEN
Former Dean of the School of Agriculture @ Texas A&M University
Presently professor of plant biology @ Arizona StateAnd founder and director of the Arizona Biodesign Institute in Tempe
The problem @ hand
Unicef estimates that 30 million infants go without basic immunizations every year
3 million of those die from preventable disease
Arntzen:
has been successful in producing GM bananas that produce a protein found on the outer surface of the Hepatitis B virus
concluded 3 early-stage clinical trials using potatoes bearing vaccines against hepatitis B, E. coli and the Norwalk virus
goal is dry powder or baby food puree form of vaccine
Other innovations in the works
Potatoes carrying insulin: Loma Linda University in California
Corn that staves off intestinal pathogens: Iowa State
Corn geared toward cystic fybrosis: Meristem Therapeutics in France
Early stage clinical trials with herpes monoclonal antibody growth in corn: Epicyte Pharmaceuticals in San Diego
Benefits
Small crops, big results: Arntzen estimates he could vaccinate all of China against Hepatitis B using 125 acres
No need for sterile injections or refrigerated vaccines
No need to worry about acquiring the disease from the vaccine: genetically engineered vaccines cannot cause the disease because the engineered bacteria cell or plant is just creating a protein that exists on the surface of a virus- not the whole virus
Worries?
“I don’t see that every village in Africa or Latin America is going to have a pharmaceutical banana tree.”
-Charles Arntzen
Treated like any other pharmaceutical or herbal medicine
Strict regulations preventing cross-pollination
Let’s define
Phytoremediation – the use of plants to remove pollutants from the environment and render them harmless
Phytoextraction – the actual
removing of the pollutants
Phytoremediation
Work on this began in the 1980s Scientists noticed that some plants could
take in toxic metals that would kill other plants
Scientist theorized that these plants could be used to clean contaminated land cheaply and more naturally
The Basics
Giant webs of roots act as a solar powered pump to withdraw, concentrate and transport essential elements and compounds from the soil and water
This also absorbs the contaminates The pollutants are drawn up into the harvestable
part of the plant The plant is then harvested and disposed of The land or aquifer will eventually become
decontaminated
What can be taken in by the roots?
Heavy metal concentrations of lead, uranium, and cadmium
ArsenicPetroleum products It can even be used to clean the
urban city air
Roots can clean the air you say?
House plants foliage is capable of removing low levels of pollution
Plant roots, assisted by a carbon filter, are able to remove much higher concentration of pollution
They can remove:
asbestos pesticides carbon dioxide carbon monoxide other gases chemicals from
detergents, solvents, and cleaning fluids
fibers released from clothing, furnishings, draperies, glass, carpets, and insulation
fungi and bacteria tobacco smoke
More benefits
Plants in urban areas absorb the extra carbon and use it for photosynthesis
Leaves also collect dust until it is washed off by rain, by adding more foliage dust can be reduced by 75%
During photosynthesis, tree foliage also removes from the atmosphere other chemicals, such as nitrogen oxides, airborne ammonia, some sulfur dioxide, and ozone, that are part of the smog and greenhouse effect problems
Working Phytoremediation
At UGA Om Dhankher has successfully engineered tobacco and other hearty plants to not only absorb arsenic but also to combine it with other proteins that would render it non-toxic
He hopes that future generations of these plants will be able to absorb 50 times the heavy metals they do today
Indian Mustard (Brassica Juncea L.) has already successfully removed lead from contaminated soil
It has even removed uranium
Problems with acceptance
EPA has not fully accepted this as a way of cleaning up after ourselves
Phytoremediation has yet to gain a proven track record with clean ups, but is still being perfected
Cost
There is also an economic side to acceptance Landowners contract clean-up through large
companies These companies receive a percentage of the
cost of clean up which would be in the 10’s of millions of dollars
Why would they want to endorse a much cheaper way of doing things?
Time
Phytoremediation also takes much longer
It can take up to 100 years to clean a site
For this reason it is better to use on a small lot of land that is not heavily contaminated until the technology can be perfected
Biotech scare stories
Maybe you’ve heard in the news about biotech corn that:
threatened monarch butterflies snuck its way into the food supply and tainted tacos overtook native maize crops in Mexico Not true.You never hear the rest of the story.You don’t hear about the scientist’s findings that
conclude these rumors to be shady
“An extensive review of 250 scientific publications which address issues of the impacts of GM crops has concluded that many of the concerns which are featured
prominently in media coverage do not stand up to careful scrutiny.”
-Life Sciences Network(the review appeared in the January edition of
The Plant Journal)
Europe vs. Genetically Modified Foods
Frankenfoods 1998 ban of GMs Lack of confidence in their regulatory
system after the Mad Cow Disease fiasco Euro-Toques: main objective is to protect the fine
quality and flavor of food
Labeling
Why 3rd World countries need Europe to cooperate
“Europe seems to be inward looking when producing biotech legislation. But any
rules set in Brussels will affect the small scale farmer in Africa or India.”
Simon BarberDirector of the Plant Biotech Unit at EuropaBio
“We are here to tell our part of the story. In Europebiotechnology seems to be more about ideologythan about rational choice. For us biotech is an
important tool to fight hunger and malnutrition. Wedo not want to be a pawn in the transatlantic trade
squabble. We have our own voice and want tomake our own decisions on how to use this new
technology.”
Professor James OchandaCoordinator Biotechnology Laboratory
University of Nairobi, Kenya Brussels, January 29, 2003
The governments of several countries in
Southern Africa have declared national disasters due to the food
security crisis