Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2021) Chinese man set up home laboratory to create a cure for his terminally ill son and developed a drug that specialists believe could help those suffering from the rare genetic Menkes disease, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Xu Wei from Kunming City in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan owned a small online retail business. When his one-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare Menkes disease, which affects the cellular transport of copper, Xu, who previously had no college degree, enrolled in public courses at several universities to study pharmacology, the news said.

"I did not go to university, but it doesn't mean I can't learn. My son needs me to survive and I will study and try all possible avenues to save him," Xu was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

Life expectancy of those diagnosed with Menkes disease usually does not exceed three years.

Xu reportedly took up chemistry after his son's experimental treatment at the local clinic failed and all other resources were unavailable. He set up a chemical laboratory in his apartment, which cost him $3,100, and began working on the drug on his own, the news said.

Xu first tested the copper histidine he developed on rabbits and on himself to ensure its safety before injecting his son, according to media reports. He then brought him to the hospital to conduct tests and check for possible complications. Next, Xu developed another drug, elesklomol, that, according to some professional studies, helps with Menkes disease.

Xu hopes genetic research will help heal his son and is currently preparing to enter university, where he will study genetic engineering, the news said.

Originally posted here:
Chinese Man Invents Drug To Cure Terminally Ill Son At Home - Reports - UrduPoint - UrduPoint News

Published: Oct. 5, 2021 at 8:00 AM EDT|Updated: 12 hours ago

EMERYVILLE, Calif. and BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Amyris, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMRS), a leading synthetic biotechnology company active in the Clean Health and Beauty markets through its consumer brands, and a top supplier of sustainable and natural ingredients, today announced that Amyris has licensedthe Onyx genome engineering platform from Inscripta, a leading gene editing technology company. Amyris and Inscripta will also explore joint research and development opportunities to expand the Onyx platform functionality.

Amyris' product development and formulation teamuses a proprietaryLab-to-Market operating system to develop and scale a growing portfolio of sustainable ingredients. The Onyx platform automates benchtop biofoundry activity and will bring greater genetic diversity and value to Amyris' ingredient development pipeline, complementing Amyris' existing Lab-to-Market operating systemwith the goal of improving efficiency and reducing timelines for the development of future molecules. To date, Amyris has successfully commercialized 13 sustainable ingredients, which are formulated in over 20,000 products and used by over 300 million consumers, demonstrating the growing demand for sustainable products with clean and effective ingredients.

Automated, high-throughput gene editing is revolutionizing the writing of genomes the way next-generation sequencing transformed the reading of genomes. Inscripta is the first company to deliver an integrated and intuitive benchtop platform that will expand access to scalable, robust genome engineering and help scientists develop solutions to some of today's most pressing challenges.

"Amyris has shown the world how new products can be made more sustainable through biology. Their team has high proficiency in utilizing cutting-edge technology, and we are excited they will be pioneering the use of our platform," said Sri Kosaraju, President and CEO of Inscripta. "We have great regard for Amyris' mission, and we are committed to seeing the Onyx platform become a substantial contributor to new clean chemistry products in the future."

"The Onyx platform offers significant potential for generating greater genetic diversity in our projects, which we expect to lead to more efficient product innovation," said Sunil Chandran, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Amyris. "Inscripta's platform seamlessly integrates with our own and opens up new experimentation avenues for our scientists to continue bringing unique bio-based products to customers. We pride ourselves on continuous innovation and expect Onyx to help us expand our pipeline, while achieving lower costs and reducing time to market."

For more information about Amyris visit amyris.comand to learn about Onyx, visitwww.inscripta.com/products.

About InscriptaInscripta is a life science technology company enabling scientists to solve some of today's most pressing challenges with the first benchtop system for genome editing. The company's automatedOnyx platform,consisting of an instrument, consumables, assays, and software, makes CRISPR-based genome engineering accessible to any research lab. Inscripta supports its customers around the world from facilities in Boulder, Colorado; San Diego and Pleasanton, California; and Copenhagen, Denmark. To learn more, visitInscripta.comand follow@InscriptaInc.

About AmyrisAmyris (Nasdaq: AMRS) is a science and technology leader in the research, development and production of sustainable ingredients for the Clean Health & Beauty and Flavors & Fragrances markets. Amyris uses an impressive array of exclusive technologies, including state-of-the-art machine learning, robotics and artificial intelligence. Our ingredients are included in over 20,000 products from the world's top brands, reaching more than 300 million consumers. Amyris is proud to own and operate a family of consumer brands - all built around its No Compromise promise of clean ingredients: Biossanceclean beauty skincare, Pipetteclean baby skincare, Purecane, a zero-calorie sweetener naturally derived from sugarcane, Terasanaclean skincare treatment, Costa Brazil luxury skincare, OLIKA hygiene and wellness, Rose Inc. clean color cosmetics and JVN clean haircare. For more information, please visit http://www.amyris.com.

Amyris, the Amyris logo, No Compromise, Biossance, Pipette, Purecane, Terasana, Rose Inc. and Lab-to-Market are trademarks or registered trademarks of Amyris, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Forward-Looking StatementsThis release contains forward-looking statements, and any statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed to be forward-looking statements.These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding Amyris' expectation of exploring additional research and development opportunities with Inscripta in the future and its expectation that Onyx will help Amyris expand its pipeline while achieving lower costs and reducing time to market. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results and future events may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties, including risks related to any delays or failures in the successful launch of a clean skincare brand; potential delays or failures in development, production, regulatory approval and commercialization of products, risks related to Amyris' reliance on third parties; Amyris' liquidity and ability to fund operating and capital expenses; and other risks detailed from time to time in filings Amyris makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. Amyris disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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SOURCE Amyris, Inc.

The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.

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Amyris Partners with Inscripta to Enhance Development of Sustainable Ingredients Using the Onyx Genome Engineering Platform - WWNY

Although acreage under GMO crop cultivation has expanded rapidly worldwide since GMOs first began to be grown in the mid to late 1990s, production remains highly concentrated in a handful of crops such as cotton, soybeans and corn which are grown in a few countries. Of the 190.4 million hectares (469.5 million acres) of GMO crops planted in 2019 for example, the US, Brazil, Argentina and Canada accounted for 84.5% of the total.

[su_panel color=#3A3A3A border=1px solid #3A3A3A radius=2 text_align=left]This is the first part of a two-part series.[/su_panel]

Most of the developing world has spurned the planting of GMO crops for a variety of reasons. First is their historical colonial links to countries in Europe, where GMOs are shunned because of a perception they are not natural. A reliance on the precautionary principle to prevent any possible risks to the health of humans and animals and the environment and active opposition by the influential organic food and anti-GMO lobby have also inhibited the development of GMO crops in Europe.

This reluctance of European nations to embrace GMOs has influenced developing countries, particularly as the EU is a major export market for many of them. The EUs strict regulatory approval system and stringent labeling requirements clearly are an inhibiting factor restraining the development of GM crops in many developing nations.

In 2020, the European Academies Science Advisory Council noted:

The EU over-regulation of GMOs had negative impact on science and innovation in developing countries who feared for their export markets and who were inclined to look to the EU to express leadership in research and development.

Unlike the US, the EU does not encourage or promote the development of GMOs in its foreign assistance programs to developing countries. A FDA website entitled, How GMO Crops Impact our World for example specifically states, The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is working with partner countries to use genetic engineering to improve staple crops, the basic foods that make up a large portion of peoples diets. The USDA also publishes annual agricultural biotechnology reports for many developing countries that track their receptiveness to developing GE crops.

Second, the antipathy of many major western NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to GMOs has influenced many developing countries. Many of these NGOs have operations or affiliates or contribute money to NGOs in the developing world. As a result, many environmental and food NGOs in developing nations also vehemently oppose the development of GMO crops. They are following the lead of their counterparts in western nations. According to Greenpeace, one of the most influential environmental NGOs:

Genetically modified crops encourage corporate control of the food chain and pesticide-heavy industrial farming. GM plants can also contaminate other crops and lead to super weeds. This technology must be strictly controlled to protect our environment, farmers and independent science.

Finally, a paper published in Food and Chemical Toxicology by the French molecular biologist Gilles-ric Sraliniin 2012 that purported to link consumption of GMOs to cancer influenced many developing countries to restrict their development as it seemed to highlight the worst fears of the opponents of GMOs. Kenya for instance, imposed a strict import ban in 2012 on GMOs citing the Seralini study. Although the study was subsequently debunked and retracted, the damage was done. The discredited paper was nonetheless promoted by GMO opponents and the perception that GMOs were dangerous lingered on for many years.

In recent years however, it has become increasingly apparent to many developing nations that genetic engineering of crops can be an important tool in helping feed a growing population at a time of climate change and when urbanization and desertification are reducing the amount of land for farming. Without a more productive farming sector, many developing nations will face a rising food import bill because of a swelling population. This is in sharp contrast to the developed world, where the population is growing at a very marginal rate or is actually shrinking:

As a result, it is imperative that many developing nations find a means of increasing their agricultural production, boost farm income and curb the cost of food imports. Genetic engineering offers that means.

This was Part One of a two-part post on the growing acceptance of GM foods and crops in the developing world. Part Two will review what specific actions countries are taking with certain foods.

Steven E. Cerier is a freelance international economist and a frequent contributor to the Genetic Literacy Project.

Read the rest here:
Viewpoint: Part 1 Opposition stirred by anti-GMO advocacy group propaganda fading in the developing world, as more countries embrace crop...

NYC demonstrators rally against COVID-19 vaccine requirements

NY Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she will take steps to replace medical personnel who refuse to meet the vaccination requirement.

USA TODAY, Associated Press

As COVID-19 vaccine mandates take effect across the U.S., one article circulating on social media claims getting jabbed in the arm may no longer be necessary.

"Vaccine Hesitant?" reads the headline of the Sept. 21 article published by an online outlet called Vision Times. "US Researchers Are Engineering Lettuce and Spinach to Carry mRNA COVID Jabs."

A University of California, Riverside research group, in collaboration with the University of California San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University, is reported as spearheading the scientific effort. The article details the study's research plans but makes no additional mention of the headline's reference to COVID-19 vaccines aside from describing how the mRNA vaccines work.

Fact check: Inhaling hydrogen peroxide for COVID-19 is dangerous, experts warn

The potential for splicing COVID-19 vaccines into food was echoed by former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn during a recent appearance on a podcast called "Thrivetime Show: Business School Without the B.S." In a viral clip shared to Twitter on Sept. 22, Flynn says he read an article where "they're talking about putting the (COVID-19) vaccine into salad dressings or salad."

As far-fetched as vaccine-infusedspinach and lettuce sounds, the claim is not entirely unfounded.

Researchers at UC Riverside and its collaborating universities are working on potentially turning plants into edible vaccine factories. But they'renot doing itfor COVID-19 specifically, and such foods won't be available in your local supermarket anytime soon.

USA TODAY reached out to Vision Times and Flynn for comment.

The National Science Foundation gave a UC Riversideresearch group $500,000 to study genetically engineering plants with mRNA, a molecule contained in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines that isnormally used by our cells to make protein.

The effort was announced in a Sept. 16 press release.

Fact check: COVID-19 vaccination has no effect on blood color

But the study is looking generally toward all mRNA vaccines not COVID-19 specifically andwon't be available for human useanytime soon, said lead researcher Juan Pablo Giraldo, associate professor in the department of botany and plant sciences.

"This research will take a couple of years to show proof of concept of the technology," he wrote in an email to USA TODAY. "If successful, it will need more studies and several more years for people to use leafy greens as mRNA vaccine factories."

The idea behind using plantshas to do with mRNA vaccines' temperature requirements. Because the molecule needs to be transported and stored under cold conditions to maintainstability, researchers hope their study will help overcome this challenge and enable storage at room temperatures, according to the press release.

Fact check: False claim that cancer has spiked as a result of COVID-19 vaccines

In order to achieve this, genetic material contained in mRNA vaccines will be inserted into small, disk-like structures within plant cells called chloroplasts, solar panel-like structures that convert sunlight into chemical energy.

"Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person," Giraldo said in the release. "We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens. Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it."

Based on our research, we rate PARTLY FALSE the claim spinach and lettuce are being genetically engineered with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Researchers at UC Riverside are indeed studying whether edible plants like spinach and lettuce can be genetically engineered to produce genetic material contained in mRNA vaccines. But thestudy isn't geared specifically toward COVID-19 vaccines. And the effort is in its infancy,meaning a product in this vein is years away from becoming reality.

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Original post:
Fact check: Genetically engineering your salad with the COVID-19 vaccines? We're not there yet. - USA TODAY

By William A. Haseltine, PhD

When I became an assistant professor at Harvard in the mid-1970s, creating a company was never part of my plan. I had only a dim understanding of how corporations were organized and no understanding of finance. But I was slowly becoming aware of how biotech businesses could be a positive force for health.

I had been keeping tabs as close friends from various universities gave up their tenured positions to join nascent companies gaining an early foothold in the new field of biotechnology. All were racing to apply the new techniques of recombinant DNA (gene splicing) to make new drugs and vaccines. I was beginning to realize that the work I was doing as a research scientist might create a conceptual breakthrough, but the businesses were the ones taking that breakthrough and delivering it in the form of drugs to patients in need.

I was working at the time on retroviruses and their potential role as a cancer-causing agent in animals. Id planned a trip to the West Coast to build up my collection of mouse leukemia viruses, which is where I learned from my friend Richard Lerner, a research chemist at Scripps who had been studying protein structures, that you could accelerate an antibody response by using peptide fragments, as opposed to using whole viruses or virus proteins. I understood the impact of the discovery immediately: using peptide fragments would be a faster, cheaper way to make vaccines.

That was the tipping point. I knew that this knowledge could shorten the time it took to develop new drugs, which at that time required at least ten years and many tens of millions of dollars. I also knew that pets and livestock suffered serious viral infections. If we could test the idea in animals, we wouldnt need to go through the FDA. I could create a company that would be a shortcut to demonstrate that a vaccine can prevent retrovirus infections that cause cancer.

I worked with Deborah Ferris, who had helped get Biogen off the ground, to develop the business plan for a company that would develop animal vaccines with this new technology. I went to every Wall Street banker and venture capitalist I knew, and I eventually landed myself a $5 million commitment. These financiers understood the power of knowledge and the economic benefits it could bring.

I thought, after securing financing, that I had jumped over the hardest and highest hurdle in the process, but I was wrong. I didnt yet realize the political hurdles I still had to jump at Harvard. There was no precedent for a Harvard assistant professor starting a company. Even for full professors, the idea was highly controversial. Harvards president had voiced skepticism, and faculty across the university grumbled, some with outrage, at the notion that biologists or biochemists might turn discoveries developed at Harvard into a personal fortune. This, despite the fact that many of the universitys history and economics professors were making tens of thousands from the sale of their books.

I was faced with many setbacks but managed to overcome them after a bit of luck followed me onto a plane flying from New York to Boston early the next year. I ended up seated beside Larry Fouraker, dean of the Harvard Business School at the time. I pitched him my idea for a company and explained the challenges I was running into at the university. He told me something I had not realized: thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act, which had been passed during a lame-duck session of Congress just months before, universities were now required to create a technology transfer office to turn new ideas into companies.

The laws intent was to promote commercialization of research funded by the federal government. Birch Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, and Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, were the legislations sponsors in the Senate. Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law. The law states that all universities and research institutes that receive federal funding must file patent applications on all discoveries with practical application and must make best efforts to transfer the technology to businesses for commercial development.

That was my green light. Larry became a close friend and mentor to me. The only requests he ever made of me were to speak to his students at the business school from time to time about entrepreneurship and to pledge some shares of the company I would found, Cambridge BioScience, to the universitys endowment fund. I ended up offering Harvard 5% equity, but they turned it down. They hadnt worked out what they thought the ethics might be of such a transaction. I can assure you that by now they have.

Far from harming my career, creating Cambridge BioScience turned out to be a huge plus. I developed powerful relationships with some of the department chairs and became a role model and adviser to other faculty members in starting their companies. Eventually, Harvards governing board and administration embraced the benefits of professors starting companies, and I was asked to chair a university-wide committee that would clarify the rules governing relationships between professors and the companies they seek to start.

Ironically, the university now requires faculty to pledge a percentage of the founding shares as well as royalties received for startups based on a professors patents. As I noted earlier, Harvard never accepted my 5% offer. But after Cambridge BioScience went public, I sold the 5% and donated the cash. They were happy to accept it.

I learned through the process that our scientific reputation is our capital. I also learned that no person or company ever becomes a success without people like Larry to support and mentor them. This is why I am so pleased to have been invited to contribute to this commemorative, 40th Anniversary edition of GEN. The magazines founder, Mary Ann Leibert, has been a great support to me over many years, but especially at two inflection points in my life.

The first was in the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when I suggested that we create a journal to help cover some of the most exciting, but often neglected, developments in the field. Mary Ann jumped at the idea and took no more than two seconds to agree, and we founded the Journal of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

Fifteen years later, I conceived of the idea of regenerative medicine and began to work with Tony Atala and others to create awareness of the new field and its motto: Regenerative medicine is any medicine designed to restore a person to normal health, including cell and stem cell therapies, gene therapy, tissue engineering, genomic medicine, personalized medicine, biomechanical prosthetics, recombinant proteins, and antibody treatments.

Mary Ann responded immediately and positively once again, offering to create the Society of Regenerative Medicine and another new journal, initiatives that were soon launched. Mary Ann, through her journals, publishing company, and GEN, has always been the wind in the sails of the biotechnology industry.

William A. Haseltine, PhD, is known for his groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS and the human genome. Haseltine was a professor at Harvard Medical School, where he founded two research departments on cancer and HIV/AIDS. Haseltine is a founder of several biotechnology companies, including Cambridge BioSciences, the Virus Research Institute, ProScript, LeukoSite, Dendreon, Diversa, X-VAX, and Demetrix. He was a founder, chairman, and CEO of Human Genome Sciences, a company that pioneered the application of genomics to drug discovery.

Haseltine is the president of the Haseltine hivFoundation for Science and the Arts and is the founder, chairman, and president of ACCESS Health International, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving access to high-quality health worldwide. He was listed by Time Magazine as one of the worlds 25 most influential business people in 2001 and one of the 100 most influential leaders in biotechnology by Scientific American in 2015.

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Making the Transition from an Academic to a Biobusiness Entrepreneur - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

While plenty of established companies have expertise in cultures for use in products such as yogurt and beer, Kingdom Supercultures is deploying computational biology to interrogate a vast database of microorganisms (yeast, bacteria, fungi etc) to identify combinations of microbes that will deliver specific functional or nutritional benefits, chief science officer Ravi Sheth told FoodNavigator-USA.

While the microbes may help improve the nutritional profile of certain products for example by enabling the production of kombuchas with less sugar - Kingdom Supercultures is not really a probiotics company, he stressed.

Nor is it a synthetic biology or precision fermentation company thats genetically engineering microbes to produce target proteins or other compounds and then engaging in complex downstream extraction and purification processes, explained Sheth. The combinations of cultures themselves which are all Non-GMO are the ingredients it plans to sell.

Were taking cultures already found in nature and combining them into specific novel combinations, and so we don't actually have to use any genetic engineering.

He added: Only in the last few years or so has it been possible to sequence these foodborne microorganisms, identify them, and predict their metabolic functionality, and so we've been able to leverage technologies from only the last couple of years, and build a biobank containing tens of thousands of microorganisms that are much broader in diversity than the kind of culture collections these legacy companies have.

The second thing we bring is the computation and data science capability, so were mining this data and using a number of novel algorithms and approaches we have internally to narrow down this design space and get to very specific cultures, in very specific ratios, that lead to these emergent functionalities, he explained.

We look at these almost like Lego building blocks, which we can rearrange into different combinations, and then create a community of them that delivers an emergent functionality that the individual strains don't have. Its like one plus one equals three.

Kingdom Supercultures has two main types of products, added Sheth, who said the firm is inactive R&D work with some of the largest most innovative CPG companies... and some of these projects are pretty late stage.

The first product type is starter cultures that can be used for things like plant based yogurts, cheeses, beers and wines. The second type is bioactives or other functional ingredients that can act as preservatives or elicit some sort of functional impact on the microbiome, exert nutritional benefits.

If you want to describe what the company does in a nutshell, he added:It took our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years to discover that hey, if I leave milk out it turns into yogurt or if I leave sugar tea out it turns into kombucha, what we can do is rationally design that process.

* This follows a $3.5M seed round with participation from Sequoia, Y-Combinator, Lakehouse Ventures, and Brand Foundry Ventures in 2020.

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Kingdom Supercultures raises $25m to expand Non GMO suite of microbes to unlock new flavors, textures, and functionalities in food & beverage -...

Genetically engineered (GE) crops, which have been commercially available for 25 years, have been widely misunderstood and under-appreciated, especially by certain news outlets. Arguably, the worst offender among the mainstream media has been the New York Times, whose manifold shortcomings in reportage and commentaries over many years are describedhereandhere.

Perhaps some glimmer of enlightenment toward genetic engineering is belatedly emerging. We were somewhat encouraged recently by Learning to Love GMOs, from science writer Jennifer Kahn in the New York Times Magazine in July. (GMO, or genetically modified organism, is a rather fluid, meaningless term used to refer to an organism modified with highly precise and predictable molecular techniques.)

At the risk of nitpicking, however, we felt that she over-emphasized the handful of genetically engineered farm products intended to be sold directly to consumers, while omitting the more important but less sexy story: the huge, palpable, proven benefits that GE crops have provided since they first hit the marketplace. Not surprisingly, there was also no mention of her newspapers decades-long, ugly history of disparaging and misrepresenting genetic engineering.

The big picture here is important, especially to Americas preeminence in the science, technologies, and application of genetic engineering. The U.S. is an agricultural powerhouse, but it is plagued by the eternal menaces to farming, including drought, floods, weeds, and pestilenceall of which are approachable by GE, in which America leads the world. Moreover, as valuable as GE is to the economic development of advanced countries, it is literally a life-saver to less developed ones. Kahn broaches none of this.

Kahn begins with a lively description of plant biologist and British professor Cathie Martin and her fabulous,GE cancer-fighting tomatoes. These fruits, dark purple in color, produce high amounts ofanthocyanins, compounds usually associated with blueberries and containing antioxidant activity. Professor Martin was able to demonstrate that cancer-prone mice fed these tomatoes lived 30% longer and were also less susceptible to inflammatory bowel disease than mice fed ordinary, non-engineered tomatoes.

The article discusses other GE specialty fruits, such as virus-resistantRainbow Papayas(which rescued Hawaiis papaya industry from oblivion) and non-browningArctic Apples, which have found valuable niches in todays market. Kahn also makes honorable mention of other GE fruits and vegetables in development, such as tastier berries and sweeter, kid-friendly kale, among many others.

Readers are left with the impression that such new crop varieties that will tickle consumers taste buds and satisfy their nutritional needs are the goaland the real valueof GE, and that these developments are just around the corner thanks to plant genetic engineering. Could that, Khan speculates, spell the turning point for widespread public acceptance of genetically engineered crops?

The problem is that Khan misidentifies the consumers who most need and would benefit from GE advances. Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, she writes, GMOs have remained wildly unpopular with consumers, who see them as dubious tools of Big Ag, with potentially sinister impacts on both people and the environment. Kahn frames the problem of GE production as the plight of small, artisanal food growers due to federal regulation that favors global agricultural conglomerates. [J]ust to go through the FDA approval process would cost a million dollars. Adding USDA approval could push that amount even higher, she writes. The regulatory barriers are, in fact, astronomical: it costs about$136 millionto bring a GE crop plant to market. This is the primary reason more than 99% of such crop plants are those that are grown at huge scale. (What makes this absurd is that plants modified with less precise, less predictable, conventional,pre-moleculartechniques arevirtually unregulated.)

The solutionadvances in the development of small-scale, bespoke GMO produceis inviting to Kahn, whose efforts seem directed at convincing WWWs:

[Professor] Martin is perhaps onto something when she describes those most opposed to GMOs as the WWWs: the well, wealthy, and worried, the same cohort of upper-middle-class shoppers who have turned organic food into a multibillion-dollar industry. If youre a WWW, the calculation is, GMOs seem bad, so Im just going to avoid them, she said. I mean, if you think there might be a risk, and theres no benefit to you, why even consider it?

Although its true that the potential for new, delicious, nutritious GE fruits and vegetables is vast, Kahn ignores the enormous success of genetically engineered crops across much of the world over the past three decadesimportantly, for more than just the well, wealthy, and worried. GE crops have in fact made food more affordable and proved to be a vital life-saving source of food and agricultural inputs for much of the developing world. Its time to set the record straight.

WORLDWIDE IMPACTS OF GE INNOVATION

Kahn laments that much of the effort in plant genetic engineering has been to produce improved varieties of our most commercially important crops, such as pest-resistant corn and cotton, herbicide-tolerant soybeans and canola (in order that weeds can be controlled more safely and effectively than by foliar spraying), and other agronomic traits such as resilience to flooding or drought. Although consumers may be unaware of these achievements, they have been eagerly embraced by farmers and critical to progress in agriculture. The acreage farmed with genetically engineered crops, which reached almost ahalf-million acres worldwide in 2018, increases every year, particularly in developing countries. (And that figure is only the official acreage; there is a great deal more cultivation with seeds obtained on theblack marketby farmers in countries where theyre not yet approved.)

In fact, the economic and environmental impacts of corn, cotton, canola, soybeans, and sugar beets alone have been enormous across the globe. According to economistsBrookes and Barfoot (2020), GE insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops have reduced pesticide spraying by 775.4 million kg. This, in turn, has resulted in a decrease in the use of fuel and tillage, which is equivalent to a reduction of greenhouse gas release on the order of removing 15.27 million cars from the roads.

Improved environmental impacts coincide withsignificant economic benefits to farmersin the form of improved yields (72%) and savings in farming costs (28%) resulting from reduced use of agricultural inputs such as chemicals. Financial gains have exceeded $225 billion since genetically engineered crops first became commercially available, with the most gains realized by farmers in developing countries. Brookes and Barfoot estimate that for every dollar invested in the seeds of GE crops, farmers in developed countries received on average $3.24 extra income. This return on investment increased to $4.41 for farmers in developing countries, where such benefits can be the difference between subsistence farming and being able to sell some of their harvests.

It is unfortunate that a technology that has been so beneficial for so many farmers has been vilified since its beginnings (including, early and often, by reporters, columnists, and commentators in the New York Times), and we wish that Kahns article had put more emphasis on the extant, significant achievements.

The impressive data collected and reported by Brookes and Barfoot are only the beginning. The opportunities for genetically engineered crops to reduce malnutrition and increase farmers profits are endless. Kahn does mention in passingGolden Rice, which produces a precursor of vitamin A and prevents vitamin A deficiencya scourge of children that causes blindness and death in countries where most of their calories come from ricewhich was recentlyapproved for cultivation in the Philippines. (And which has been relentlesslyopposedby activists for decades.) But there are many more such examples, includingstaple engineered cropssuch as rice biofortified withiron,zinc, andfolate.

Besides higher yields and direct economic benefits, the cultivation of insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops also has significant collateral effects in developing countries, such as reducing laborious tasks of women and girls in the field, improved childrens literacy, and greater gender equality. These, in turn, foster improved economic growth and quality of life for communities.

In addition, decreased crop losses due to pests lead not only to improved yields and farmers incomes, but,especially compared to organic farming, also reduce levels of food waste and lower the risk ofcancer,spina bifida in newborns, and other health problems caused by thefungal toxinsaflatoxinandfumonisin, respectively, which are less likely to accumulate in crops that are protected from predation by insects. Improved crop quality and yields and lower agronomic inputs also translate intoless release of greenhouse gases(and, thus, a lower carbon footprint) and less conversion of land to farming.

Unlike the spraying of chemical pesticides, the cultivation of crops like Bt-cotton and Bt-brinjal (eggplant), which contain a protein (from the bacteriumBacillus thuringiensis) toxic to certain insects, does not impactnon-target insects. They are helpful, therefore, for maintaining and restoring the health of natural ecosystems and the sustainable management of wilderness areas. At the same time, genetic engineering technologies related to biomass production using crops ranging fromsugarcanetoswitchgrass, and evenalgae, are helping to produce affordable, attainable energy.

Underscoring their significance, particularly for poor farmers in developing countries, many of these improvements fall under thesustainable development goalsestablished by the United Nations.

PUTTING SCIENCE AND INNOVATION FIRST

It seems that American consumers crave technology in every aspect of their lives except in food production. Why is that? We believe it is the result of a multi-decade, multi-national, multi-billion dollarfear-and-smearcampaign against GE crops and foods by what amounts to an anti-genetic engineering industry.

Technology has helped to double food production in the last 50 years. We have the cheapest, safest, most abundant food supply in history, but now, those seeking to increase the market for organic/natural products, abetted by the woke media, want to force agricultural science to a more primitive, less productive time by embracinginefficient practices. Although they have been successful in creating a niche for their products, we cannot let this way of thinking stymie or reverse the stunning scientific, economic, and environmentaladvancesthat have come from genetic engineering and gene editing technologies, in which the U.S. is preeminent.

Regulators permitting, the next wave of important developments could be in the genetic engineering of animals, in particular the creation of new varieties resistant to devastating, economically crippling diseases. These include pigs resistant to the devastatingPorcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus, the cause of losses to U.S. pig farmers of more than $600 million annually. The foreseeable development of chickens with genetic resistance to avian influenza will be a monumental breakthrough because there is no vaccine against it, and outbreaks result in the culling of tens of millions of birds annually. This field has the potential to create the Next Big Things in agricultureif only innovation were not strangled by unnecessary, misguided government regulation, abetted by an antagonistic media and highly organized, vocal activists.

Americans are experiencing shocking inflation in food prices, and the wider adoption of innovative GE technologies can help to stem it. Insect predation, weeds, and unpredictable weather events are the perennial enemies of farmers but, as discussed above, GE has already made significant strides to mitigate them. The greater exploitation of drought- and flood-resistant crop plants and the prevention of viral diseases in food animals can also aid food production in the parts of the nation plagued by those natural disruptions.

Putting America first means putting science and innovation first.

Billions in potential revenue and life-saving technologies have already been lost to us because of our failure to adopt this attitude. Consider biopharmingthe once-promising biotechnology area that uses genetic engineering techniques to induce crops such as corn, tomatoes ,and tobacco to produce high concentrations of high-value pharmaceuticals (one of which is the Ebola drug, ZMapp). The entire field is moribund because of the Agriculture Departments extraordinary regulatory burdens. And thanks to EPAs policies, which discriminate against organisms modified with the most precise and predictable techniques, the high hopes for genetically engineered biorational microbial pesticides and microorganisms to clean up toxic wastes have evaporated.

As a result, the potential for innovation that modern genetic engineering holds for long-term, robust U.S. economic growth and higher living standards has been drastically reduced. Amazon CEOJeff Bezosalso made this point in the context of developing commercial drones at a conference in 2014. Technology is not going to be the long pole, hesaid. The long pole is going to be regulatory. And yet, regulatory agencies seem to be becoming more imperious and politicized. If U.S. policymakers fail to seize the day, we will likely be overtaken by China, which is fast becoming a significant player. As University of Pennsylvania political scientist Scott Moore haswritten, Chinas progress has implications that span national security, data security, and economic competitiveness.

None of the big picture appeared on Kahn or the New York Timess radar screen. We hope, however, to see a follow-up from her that tells the whole storythat over four decades, genetic engineering has delivered myriad critical economic, health, humanitarian, environmental, and scientific benefits. That we need more of it, regulated more rationally. And that its critics, including her colleagues at the Times, are misinformed and misguided.

Kathleen Hefferon, Ph.D., teaches microbiology at Cornell University. Find Kathleen on Twitter@KHefferon. Henry Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He was a Research Associate at the NIH and the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology. Find Henry on Twitter@henryimiller.

#Reprinted with permission. The original article can be found here.

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Is The New York Times Finally 'Learning To Love GMOS'? - American Council on Science and Health

Olly Mannand The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters.

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In this weeks episode, we discuss:

The UK government has announced plans to allow gene-editing to be used in agricultural crops, diverging from an EU-wide ban on any genetic modification. Proponents of the technique say that it is more like accelerated selective breeding than genetic engineering - and that it could help farmers grow more produce while using fewer pesticides. But its opponents are worried that it will pave the way for riskier experiments.

A landmark legal case has begun between two stand-up comedians over who owns the rights to a comedy routine. One has hired Harbottle & Lewis, the lawyers best known for representing the Queen, to argue his case. So are we going to see lots of comedians taking one another to court? And how can you really establish who owns a joke anyway?

TikTok videos with the manifestation hashtag have been viewed a whopping ten billion times on TikTok, making it a buzzword of 2021. Its the latest incarnation of cosmic ordering - the practice of asking the universe to deliver what you expect from it, whether thats exam success or romantic fulfilment. Is it just harmless fun, or does it have a darker side to it?

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Gene editing, joke theft and manifesting - The Week UK

The team of scientists led by George Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, will use genetic engineering to develop a cold-resistant elephant or an Arctic elephant. Several news reports have pointed out that the company has received $15 million in initial funding.

The team has selected over 50 traits that will enhance the cold-resistant ability of an Asian elephant. These include shaggy coats, smaller ears, cold-adapted forms of haemoglobin and excess adipose tissue production.

The idea is to use these genes and with the help of CRISPR technology insert them into the Asian elephants genome. The team will then create an embryo that carries the traits of a woolly mammoth.

The embryo will be implanted into a surrogate African elephant. The gestation in the elephants womb will take place for around 18-22 months and a hybrid Arctic elephant will be born.

But why a woolly mammoth and why now?

Colossal mentions on its website that one of the core goals for reviving the mammoth is to revert the now-overshrubbed forests into natural arctic grasslands, which will help with carbon emissions.

The tundra, which is now a mossy forest, used to be a grassland and the team said that bringing back the mammoths could help bring back the steppe (unforested grassland) ecosystem and help in reversing the rapid warming of the climate.

They said that grazing mammoths will help re-establish the grassland ecosystem and prevent the thawing and release of greenhouse gases that are now trapped in the arctic permafrost.

Dr George Church told the IndianExpress.com that for carbon sequestration preserving the methane from being released and bringing new carbon dioxide into the frozen soil models have shown that about 100 Arctic elephants would be needed.

We would need an area of somewhere between one and three million square kilometre at first to have an impact. But considering there are about 20 million square kilometre of Arctic, thats a small fraction, he added.

When will an Arctic elephant be born?

Ben Lamm, the founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, told reporters that one can see the first generation of Arctic elephant calves in four to six years. Our goal is a little over a decade before we get full reintroduction, he added.

Lamm said that the short-term plan includes developing veterinary reproductive technologies for endangered species in particular, and for endangered environments and ecosystems.

Look at this like the Apollo programme. When humankind went to the moon, we actually developed a lot of great technologies, including technologies that are allowing us to have this conversation today. And so we think theres a lot of applications of the technologies that will come out of these synthetic wombs, multiplex editing which can be used for protecting critically endangered species, in agriculture, and for veterinary use, he added.

Ethical questions

Professor Adrian M Lister from the Division of Vertebrates and Anthropology at Natural History Museum London told the IndianExpress.com that this plan raises many ethical questions, Especially since we are talking about a highly intelligent, social animal, not a lab animal like a fruit fly or a nematode worm.

He added that it was quite likely that there would be many failed experiments (abortions or malformed births) before they might have a successful pregnancy and a functioning offspring.

Second, do we really know enough about the elephants adaptations to be sure we can fully equip it for life in the Arctic? This is a tropical animal that lives in equatorial daylight and climatic regime, eating trees and tall tropical grasses. They may be able to engineer a thick coat and fat layer, for example, but there may be many other necessary physiological or biochemical adaptations that we are not aware of. Will these animals thrive in such an alien environment? he asked.

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Can we bring back the woolly mammoth? - The Indian Express

The University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) has invited Vandana Shiva to speak on October 7th.According to a speaker booking website, her asking price for a lecture is a cool 100k.Lets give UMKC the benefit of the doubt, and assume they got a deal.It is hard to imagine a price for this world famous charlatan that gives good value.

It is a safe bet that most of us have never heard of Vandana Shiva, and this is, on balance, a good thing. Shiva has earned a measure of fame and a great deal of fortune railing against the use of modern technology in agriculture. She burst upon the scene by arguing that genetically modified cotton was causing hundreds of thousands of suicides amongst Indian farmers. Farmers have many reasons to be depressed, Dr. Shiva amongst them, but I can guarantee you that a technology that safely controls bugs that used to eat your crops isnt one of them. A 2011 study published in India found no correlation between genetically modified cotton seeds and farmer suicide, a conclusion which will surprise no one whose livelihood doesnt depend on believing the opposite, at one hundred thousand dollars per Zoom call.

In 1999, a cyclone caused ten thousand deaths in India. The U.S. sent grain and soybeans to help feed survivors. Shiva held a news conference to protest the donation, accusing the U.S. of using the victims of the cyclone as guinea pigs for genetically engineered products. When India accepted the food donations, she was highly critical. Better starvation than the unthinkable alternative of eating food that has been safely consumed billions of times.

Shiva has long been opposed to the introduction of Golden Rice, a genetically modified rice that helps prevent blindness by increasing vitamin A in the rice. Every year, about five hundred thousand children lose their sight because of vitamin A deficiency, and 70% of those children die within a year.Shiva has called the technology a hoax. Her appearance at UMKC is part of something called the Social Justice Book and Lecture series.Although social justice may be hard to define, Shivas position on this life-saving technology would surely be its opposite.

Agriculture owes a great debt to those who have worked so hard and so long to counter the arguments of Shiva and others against genetic engineering. For most of us the issue was long ago settled, the arguments stale, the battle won, and it was time to move on.

However much we might wish it to be so, the issue never really goes away. The fruits of Shivas long and lucrative fight against modernity pop up in the most unexpected places and in the most costly ways. The arguments against Covid vaccines mirror Shivas insane opposition to saving the lives of children, and even though the two sides have largely switched ideological labels, the horrendous costs in lives and fortunes are eerily similar.

It has to be heartening to GMO warriors that, despite the arguments of Shiva and the like, much of humanity consumes food improved by genetic engineering every day and Golden Rice is finally being approved in countries where it is so desperately needed. In the face of unending social media criticism of vaccines, some three-quarters of the U.S. population eligible for vaccines have availed themselves of the opportunity. Facts do prevail, usually, but it sometimes takes a very long time.

UMKC is a wonderful institution, doing valuable work. College students ought to have their ideas, beliefs, and biases challenged at every turn. The kids at UMKC who attend the virtual lecture will survive their exposure to Shiva, and may even be challenged to learn more about the relationship, largely beneficial, between agriculture and technology.Having said all that, this taxpayer would hope that social justice will be better served in the future by more discerning choices in speakers.

Blake Hurst is a farmer and greenhouse grower in Northwest Missouri.

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Opinion: Saving lives through real social justice - Agri-Pulse