Paul Lurquin - High Tech Harvest: Understanding Genetically Modified Food Plants

The mechanism of DNA replication

A simplified summary of the flow of information from DNA to protein

The first Boyer/Cohen DNA cloning experiment

Chimeric plasmid SLJ2011 containing the plant-expressible, herbicide resistance bacterial bar gene

Crown gall tumor (white, elongated, somewhat fuzzy mass) growing on the stem of a tobacco plant inoculated with A. tumefaciens

Experiment demonstrating Agrobacterium-mediated antibiotic resistance gene transfer into plant cells

Structures of a normal, virulent pTi molecule and its nonvirulent, engineered counterpart

Simplified representation of gene transfer between A. tumefaciens and a plant cell

Regeneration of plants from protoplasts

How genetically engineered plants become resistant to herbicides. Case 1: Roundup Case 2: Liberty

Control (top) and transgenic (bottom) rice plants of the Kitaake (japonica) variety

G ENETICALLY ENGINEERED PLANT PRODUCTS line the shelves of our grocery stores but we do not know which ones they are because no labels identify them. Should we be concerned? Should wefiguratively speakingbe up in arms against biotechnology as are the Europeans, the Japanese, and the Canadians? What are genetic engineering and biotechnology anyway? How does one genetically engineer plants? Is it true that some plants have been engineered with a gene extracted from a fish? Biotechnology companies are saying that engineered corn and canola are safe. Are they telling us the truth? I have written this book to answer all these questions and more.

I believe the public has the right to know and understand how its food is being manipulated at the most intimate level, that of the DNA itself. My goal is to inform, not to take a stand in favor or against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). I am, however, critical of the way biotech companies have introduced (or rather, failed to introduce) their plant products to the public. I am equally critical of those who show their disapproval of GMOs through acts of vandalism rather than with open discussion. This being said, I add that I have never received grant money from any biotech company, nor have I ever consulted for monetary gains for one. I do know plant genetic engineering quite well, however. I have been involved since 1973 in the basic research that led to its development, always in an academic environment. I have met most of the scientists who made plant genetic engineering possible, and as far as I know the vast majority of them are not only still alive but also still actively involved with their work. This good news does not attest to their longevity or mine, it simply shows that biotechnology is an extremely young science. We should keep this fact in mind when we think about its implications.

Biotechnology is an innovation that requires some explanation. It involves a type of genetic manipulation that is entirely new, but it relies squarely on fundamental scientific discoveries made in decades past. Many of these discoveries are complex even though their applications may seem deceptively simple. Therefore, one must understand genetic engineering before one can formulate an informed opinion about it. To become an informed person, one must do more than gloss over difficult concepts and then declare that one is for or against genetically modified foods. For this reason, parts of this book will require attentive reading, in particular , which explains the basics of gene cloning. The reader will then understand that biotechnology is an offshoot of the basic science of genetics, not a technology that was developed for the specific purpose of making genetically modified organisms. I hope also to demonstrate that in the end acceptance or rejection of genetically modified food plants must rely on science and science alone. Politics, economics, or other societal factors cannot replace the objective tools of the scientific method, whose validity has never been refuted successfully since its inception about 400 years ago.

This book originated with another book project I undertook with Columbia University Press in 1999. That book, The GreenPhoenix: A History of Genetically Modified Plants, published in 2001, is a scholarly work intended mostly for academics and university students. Holly Hodder (former publisher for the sciences at Columbia University Press and now vice president and publisher at Westview Press) then suggested that a general audience trade book on the history and applications of plant genetic engineering would serve a purposethat of informing the public of what is happening in this field. Hence, this book. Basic genetic principles and elements of gene cloning are presented before plant genetic engineering proper and its implications. My philosophy here is simply that the cart should not precede the horse. Too many reports have assumed that readers already know genetics, and this assumption has resulted in the hideously wrongbut fairly commonmisconception that anything that contains genes is, by definition, bad. All living creatures have genes, and we have learned to manipulate these with ultimate precision. That is a great and perhaps frightening novelty. After reading this book, the reader will understand how this knowledge and power evolved.

Hundreds of scientific articles dealing with plant genetic engineering have been published. Some are listed in the references at the end of this book. This bibliography presents articles that do not require any particular scientific knowledge in order to understand them, such as