Title: Coming soon: Genetically edited 'super bananas' and other fruit?
Website: Science Daily
Author: Not Stated
Date: August 13, 2014
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140813131044.htm
Summary:
The recent advances in biotechnology now allow scientists to genetically "edit" bananas' and other fruits' genomes. This will allow scientists to genetically improve these fruits without having to introduce foreign genes to them. Avoiding the transgenic aspect of genetic modification makes the process a lot more natural and takes away the scare for a lot of anti-GMO people. The slight changes in the fruit genome would allow us to increase and decrease how much of a natural ingredient they would make. For example, increasing the amount a vitamin A made in bananas. This is made possible by the use of new tools CRISPR and TALEN. Also, the knowledge of the fruit genome allows us to pinpoint the areas that require change in genetic editing. Once the area of the genome is pinpointed, the scientists can insert, delete or alter the order of this specific part of the genome. Fruits are only the start to this new process, and as the genomes of more foods become more well-known the process will be able to become more widespread. So say good bye to GMOs, and say hello to the more natural GEOs.
Relevance:
This article relates to our curriculum of the past term because it relates to biotechnology and how plants are genetically modified. The article describes a new, more natural way genetically modify fruits. We had a GMO vs. Non-GMO debate and this new tactic would have been a good tactic for the GMO side as all the people who are Anti-GMO because is "unnatural,"can be answered with this new more natural way tactic to genetic modification. Also, the article mentioned that the genomes were to be edited by the processes of insertion, deletion, and reordering. Insertion and Deletion were two things that we studied that could naturally occur in the genome, and often had a negative effect. These processes are now slightly different as they are not natural and have a positive outcome but share the same idea as the processes we studied.
Why would GEOs be less of "a scare for a lot of anti-GMO people" when GEOs are still produced by artificially altering/changing the base sequences of the genes of these bananas? Also, would these GEO bananas have similar potential negative effects as GMOs?
ReplyDeletewould this technique of editing the genome of fruits alter the commercial price of the product? If so, would the benefits that are associated with the altering of the genome outweigh the increase in price of the fruit?
ReplyDeleteCherry Jia
ReplyDeleteBy eliminating the introduction of other organisms' traits, it makes the process a lot more natural
Peggy Flanagan
ReplyDeleteThe process is simpler than the process of producing GMOs, therefore cheaper, and because GMOs are widely produced, that GEOs also have the ability to be widely produced without being to expensive.