The Biotechnology Industry Organization Pacific Rim Summit on Biotechnology and Biofuels wrapped up on Friday. I would like to conclude my coverage of this conference by giving out a few undoGE awards for the best and the worst of what I saw.
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Today’s plenary lunch session was the most interesting of the sessions so far. Dr. Drew Endy, Assistant Professor at the Bioengeneering department at Stanford and the President of the BioBricks Foundation (a registry for DNA code), spoke about synthetic biology. His vision for the technology (which is well underway, by the way) is that there will be a large registry, sort of like iTunes, where one can download DNA sequences. Using an assembler, they can produce the DNA, and essentially write a computer program (organic machine) using DNA. Apparently, they have already mapped the DNA for all boolean algebra.

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The highlight of the first session was Christina Drake. Her title is Sr. Research Engineer with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, and her role is to integrate nanotechnology and biotechnology into LH research.
My favourite quote was “biotechnology is just chemistry.” Of course anyone who has done any research into the issues of generic engineering has realized by now that a fundamental problem is that the scientists are viewing plants and bacteria as machines rather than living organisms which are part of greater system.

As an attendee at this event, I will be covering many of the sessions on generic engineering, biofuels, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology.
As best as I can, I will be posting short snippets via my iPhone, and then I will do a more in depth report at the end of the conference.
Stay tuned.

According to a documentary on homelessness aired on CBC’s Ideas last night, a program put in place last fall in the UK uses CCTV cameras to analyze peoples walk. They program identifies people who are walking in an abnormal way and raises an alert. The purpose of the system, as far as I can gather, is to single out the homeless, drunk and thieving from the general population so they can prevent crime. What you really end up with is a Ministry of Silly Walks. Monty Python was ahead of its time.

What is xenotransplantation?

Xenotransplantation is the use of non-human organs in humans. Most commonly this means using pig organs. The pigs are often genetically engineered with human genes, grown to adult size, and then their organs are harvested for implant into humans.
This technology is still in the experimentation stage, but many scientists are excited about the possibility of solving the organ shortage with this process. It is illegal to do clinical trials in Canada, but they are being done in other countries like Mexico (with the support and funding of Canadian doctors and organizations).

Why is wrong with xeno?
Genetically engineering pigs with human genes is inherently dangerous. Genetic engineering produces unpredictable and hard-to detect side effects. Even if the pigs are raised in total isolation, what do you do with the carcases once they are dead? What about their excrement? We simply have no idea what effect they have on the bacteria, what will happen with the DNA and novel proteins, what might happen if another animal (or human) ingests the pig meat with human genes.

By far the most serious risk from xenotransplantation is the risk of novel diseases. Retroviruses are diseases which are suppressed in the DNA, and do not affect the host, and cannot be transmitted. They are dormant. Most organisms have retroviruses in their DNA. The fear is that when a pig organ is implanted into a human, a pig retrovirus could infect the human host. This is not only a problem for the human who receives the transplant, but for the human race, since the virus could be transmitted to other humans.
HIV is a primate retrovirus that spread to humans.

For further reading:
http://www.crt-online.org/wrong.html

Not for the faint of heart:
http://www.xenodiaries.org/

Friends of the Earth Australia has released a new report on nano-scale particles which are being manufactured and put into food. According to their report, at least 104 food, food packaging, and agricultural products are being sold world-wide. These include everything from the wrapping on Cadbury chocolates to cooking oil.

Nano particles are basically everyday compounds which are produced such that the particles are much much smaller than they normally are. Everything smaller then 100nm (one hundred nanometers), which is on the scale of atoms and molecules, are considered nano. Because of their small size, these particles have a larger relative surface area, which makes them more reactive and bioactive, and they more easily penetrate the skin, stomach or intestinal lining, and cell walls. Their behavior is substantially different then anything with the same chemical composition which is not on the nano scale.

Why is nano bad? Its not necessarily a bad technology. The problem is, we don’t know very much about the potential toxicity of nano-particles. We also don’t know how they will behave in the environment once released. There is currently no regulation in Canada for the nano-tech industry.

What do we know about the impact on human and environmental health? According to the new FoE report, nano particles of silver, zinc, zinc-oxide and titanium dioxide have been tested and shown to be highly toxic to cells in test tube studies.

How do we know what products are made with nano-particles? There is no labeling requirement for products that use nano-technology, so we don’t really know. Some clear sunscreen uses nan0-particles to avoid the unpleasant feeling of smearing cream on your skin, but I would rather use a cream sunscreen then have nano-particles enter my skin cells and blood stream.

When reading the article “Clone, Clone on the Range” in this weeks Georgia’s Straight, I was having flashbacks to reading articles on the regulation of GE crops. Essentially every non-commercial scientist has stated that meat and milk from cloned animals are not the same as their conventionally bred counterparts. Between 95 an 99.5% of all attempted a clones fail to make it to birth, and even if a clone is born, half of them have life-threatening birth defects. In short, a clearly unsafe agriculture technology is being allowed without proper safety testing.

The striking difference between the USDA report on GE crops, and that for cloning, is that the GE report denied knowledge of any safety issues. The basis for the allowance of genetic engineering for food was that the USDA had no knowledge of any harmful effects, or meaningful differences between GE crops and conventionally bred crops (later revealed to be a total lie). With cloning, however, the USDA revealed that they are aware of major differences between cloned and not clones animals. They are aware of the truly staggering number of birth defects, and they made reference to studies which clearly demonstrated that more testing needed to be done. The conclusion: meat and milk from cloned animals is essentially the same as from conventionally bred animals. Furthermore, the USDA is allowing the livestock that die of birth defects to be sent to rendering plants, and fed to pets and humans (in lard)

What do we do now? I will never again eat meat from the United States. Cloned beef could be on shelves in the US in a couple months, and there is no labeling requirement. Furthermore, unlike GE food, there is currently no test that can be performed to identify meat or dairy from cloned animals. Health Canada is now reviewing the USDA report and may reconsider our ban on eating clones. This is likely because once the US starts doing it, we either have to shut down our border to American meat and dairy (a political nightmare, especially for Steve, who is so close with the Bushes), or follow our friends to the south by relaxing our laws. I certainly hope we take a stand like we did with the anti rBGH ruling.