GM animals on the menu

January 2022

As we enter 2022, what happened to the GM edible animals that we've been promised over the years?

Super-fast growing GM salmon have been trying to emerge from the lab since 1989 [1,2,3].

Having gained regulatory approval in America in 2015, GM salmon are now legal to produce and sell there despite being declared unlawful in 2020 due to the absence of any environmental risk assessment.

Arm yourself with the facts

November 2019

Science used to mean 'knowledge', a knowledge based on systematic observation and careful experimentation to come to a conclusion as close to the truth as our limited ability allowed.

Now we have GMOs, living products of technology, and science has come to mean bullshit based on systematic assumption and careful avoidance of experiments which might throw up` inescapable, inconvienient conclusions.

Non-GM GMOs

November 2019

Gene-editing is a rising star because it is 'easy' and 'precise. Yet, gene-edited animals haven't so far managed to make it over the horizon due to the technical difficulty in preventing DNA pollution of the edited animals' genome [1,2].

However, much of the immediate commercial interest in gene-editing lies in crop plants, and plants present a whole stack of extra obstacles to gene-editing not present in animals.

Hornless gene edited cattle with extras

November 2019

Funny, how history keeps repeating itself.  In the early 1990s, the slow-to-rot FlavrSavr GM tomato was going to be the poster child for genetic transformation.  Its creators in Calgene, were convinced they knew exactly what DNA sequences they had inserted and touted the precision of the technology in their representations to the US Food and Drug Federation (FDA).  Interestingly, the FDA asked Calgene to prove the claim.   

The upshot was that Calgene discovered bits of DNA from the bacterial vector (Agrobacterium) had also been inserted into the GM tomato genome. 

Quarter of a century later, genetic transformation is old-hat and gene-editing is all the rage because it's precise.  So much so, that the edits deliver the same outcome as "could be achieved by breeding in the farmyard". 

Bullet-proof bees

May 2019

People need bees to produce over 80% of their food. Bees need flowers to produce 100% of their food. The people, the bees and the flowering plants all have to be in the right place at the right time, or none will survive.

Paradoxically, modern man seems to have gone out of his way to make life impossible for the insects he depends on.

A succession of sick pigs?

May 2018

In a re-run of the GM wonder-crop revolution which promised weed-free fields growing pest-free crops, it looks like we're getting a GM wonder-pig revolution of disease-free herds (soon to be followed by flocks of GM wonder-hens and shoals of GM wonder-fish).

Scottish scientists have modified pig genes to "massively increase resistance and resilience to infection". The first targets are 'Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus' (PRRSV) which causes breathing problems and leads to still births and stunted offspring when sows are infected, and African Swine fever.

Errors in CRISPR

November 2017

We don't eat people or mice, but there's a lot to be learned from GM versions of both.

GM people aren't yet a reality, but soon could be. The first clinical trial of a GM technique to correct a faulty gene is already underway in China and another is due to start next year in America.

GM humans have become a realistic goal since the invention of the 'CRISPR/Cas9' system for making precise changes in any genome [1].

CRISPR/Cas9 has been used successfully to restore the sight of blind laboratory mice by correcting a faulty gene. The researchers didn't notice anything wrong with their GM animals. However, the technique is to be applied to humans, and there's an awareness that "every new therapy has some potential side-effects". They therefore decided to check out the possibility of "secondary mutations in (DNA) regions not targeted" by the CRISPR's RNA-homing device which seeks out the DNA sequence destined to be changed.

GM 'solutions' for the phosphate problem

 November 2016

 

Photo Creative Commons

As governments and environmentalists worry about the pollution of our waters by phosphates pouring out of intensive pig and chicken farms, and worry about the dwindling supplies of phosphate needed for fertilizers and feed supplements, and worry about increasing human micronutrient deficiencies, genetic engineers have come with their own 'solutions'.

GM by injection?

May 2016

Early in the GM game, the public were regaled with rosy images of the therapeutic wonders which GM crops would provide: the world would be rid of hepatitis B and other infectious diseases by a vaccine a single dried GM banana chip; Third World blindness would be banished forever with a bowl of vitamin-A-rich GM rice; unwanted preganacies would be a thing of the past with a little GM contraceptive corn delivering human antibodies to fight off sperm.

These wonders don't seem to have actually materialised yet: vaccines-in-a-banana disappeared below the radar, golden-rice has generated lots of PR but no healthier people [1], and the pregnancy-preventing plants fizzled out in bankruptcy.

However, GM pharmaceuticals are certainly alive and well and generating vast profits for industry.

GMO animals in the pipeline

January 2016

Photo © Greenpeace / Christian Lehsten

With GM salmon looming very close to dinner-plates on the other side of the pond [1], what's likely to be the next gene-tinkered animal flesh in the supermarket?

The odds seem to be on sumo-wrestler-style pigs, cows and sheep.

New Zealand's GM cow disaster

January 2016

Ever since Dolly the cloned sheep was born in Scotland in 1996, biotech scientists have had their sights on GM livestock.

'Cloning' can now refer to several procedures, but generally involves removing a nucleus from the cell of an animal with desired characteristics and inserting it into an egg cell whose own nucleus has been removed.  The restructured egg is then stimulated to divide and form an embryo which is inserted into the womb of a surrogate mother.  If all goes well, the pregnancy goes to full-term and a healthy, fertile offspring ensues. 

For genetic engineers, that brief availability of the cell nucleus of a future animal is a golden opportunity to insert a gene.

The procedure involves at least three animals: the nucleus donor, the egg-cell donor, and the embryo recipient.  Because the success rate is low, it also involves multiple embryos and multiple sets of cell donors and surrogate mothers.  Add to this the veterinary surgeons, drugs, field-station facilities and staff, specialist laboratories and, of course, biotech scientists.  Clearly, cloning doesn't come cheap.

GM salmon approved

January 2016

In November 2015, after nearly two decades in the regulatory pipeline, the biotech creators of GM fast-growing salmon were "delighted and somewhat surprised" when the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) finally approved their novel fish [1].

Labelling requirements have been left vague, limited to draft guidelines on wording for possible voluntary 'GM' or 'non-GM' labelling.

Be prepared for 2016

January 2016

Quite a few dark GM clouds were gathering during 2015.  Be prepared for the storms to break. 

Any time now, expect a raft of industry stunts to persuade regulators and consumers that black is white.  Try these for size...

Anti-allergen milk... with added allergens

November 2012

Photo of non-gm cow by JelleS on Flickr

The U.S. media has made much of the latest “impressive (GM) technical feat that won plaudits in the biotechnology world”. This impressive feat is the creation by scientists in New Zealand of a GM cow called Daisy.

Daisy's milk is missing 'β-lactoglobulin', a “key” protein often responsible for triggering allergies. In the first year of life, as many as two or three in every hundred infants are allergic to this protein.

Rather than report the huge ethical, scientific and safety issues surrounding the novel cow, journalists have chosen instead to lament the “hopeless logjam” caused by the U.S. government in its failure to rush GM animal products to market. Also due to the regulatory incompetence which, it seems, is having “a chilling effect on animal biotech efforts”, GM animal research is being abandoned or transferred overseas. One Canadian scientist is quoted as saying his GM pigs have had to be banked in cold storage until “societal attitudes improve”.

Before blaming the government and public for the lack of GM super-animals in the world, perhaps the journalists should have considered the matter in more depth.

The demise of the McClones

May 2012

Sign outside Newmeadow farm, Auldearn, Scotland.
Photo W. L. Tarbert (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia CommonsPhoto 

What happened to the McClone clan which came to light in 2010? This clan was a Scottish herd of Holstein milking cows who were apparently the granddaughters of an American cow's ear (see A FEW BUILT-IN PROBLEMS WITH CLONED ANIMALS - GMFS News Archive, November 2010, and McCLONES - July 2011).

The story so far is difficult to piece together from the patchy, and sometimes muddled, information appearing in the press, but it runs something like this...

Flu free fowl

February 2011

The latest UK research on GM is the creation of flu-free chickens.  In these novel birds, the dreaded H5N1 virus can't replicate as normal, doesn't infect the rest of the flock, and therefore, presumably, won't transfer to humans.

Avian flu continues to be a global health concern.  Although primarily a disease of wild birds, it occasionally infects poultry flocks in which it can spread like wildfire.  Controls, such as vaccination and bio-security measures, are complicated by the nature of the virus which is not a single type of virus, but exists in many subtypes and, like all flu, is an ever-evolving “master of mutability”.

Fears of a major outbreak of the virus in the UK in 2006 came after a swan, found dead off the coast of Fife, was discovered to be infected with H5N1.  The virus did not cross any species barriers in Scotland and the feared pandemic did not happen.