Genetic EngineeringBioethics

Who we are

University of Chicago iGEM team

“International Genetically Engineered Machines” Competition

Create a genetically modified organism or “machine” every summer 10 weeks, 6-12 undergraduates and highschoolers 1 weekend at MIT Lots of prizes

What is Genetic Engineering?

Who are Genetic Engineers?

Mother nature Farmers

Scientists

Spider Silk

Creation of artificial spider silk by Nexia, a biotech company

Spider silk protein created by goats in their milk, then spun into silk

However, still not comparable to actual spidersilk

Insulin Insulin—originally isolated from

cows and pigs

1982 – Humulin, a biosynthetic human insulin

Attempting to optimize insulin production by expressing them in different things

Insert human insulin gene into bacteria

Penicillin

Directed evolution of penicillin strains

Inserted genes to make erythromycin (penicillin substitute) into E Coli, which totally worked

Genetic Engineered Foods I

Pest resistance

Herbicide tolerance

Disease resistance

Cold/drought tolerance

More nutrition

Soil remediation

Pros

Genetic Engineer Foods II

Pusztai potato data

Pusztai reportedly fed rats potatoes genetically modified to have snowdrop lectin (which is an insecticide). the rats had stunted growth + immune system damage

Controversy: confusion over the lectin was from snowdrop (cool) or jackbean (poisonous)

research republished in october 1999, reviewed by 6 reviewers. "he paper did not mention stunted growth or immunity issues, but reported that rats fed on potatoes genetically modified with the snowdrop lectin had "thickening in the mucosal lining of their colon and their jejunum" when compared with rats fed on non modified potatoes"

Case Study

Genetic Engineered Foods: Fears

"Human health effects can include higher risks of toxicity, allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression and cancer. As for environmental impacts, the use of genetic engineering in agriculture could lead to uncontrolled biological pollution, threatening numerous microbial, plant and animal species with extinction, and the potential contamination of non-genetically engineered life forms with novel and possibly hazardous genetic material." (http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall7.cfm)

Unintended harm to other organisms

Reduced effectiveness of pesticides

Gene transfer to non-target species

Allergies

Unknown effects

Genetic Engineered Foods IV

Royal Society of Medicine says no ill effects from GM foods

US National Academies of Sciences says no ill effects from GM foods

Sources:

RSM: http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/101/6/290

US NAS: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10977#toc

What people are worried about are LONG TERM effects; everything is based on only 15 years of research

Official Word on Safety

Ethics

good summary of fears: http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/glenn.html

crossing species boundaries? (blurring the line btwn people and other things)

disease transmission - antibiotic strains of stuff that weren't antibiotic

alteration of animals for food

Altered species w/ human genes - humans?

genetic alteration of kids/eugenics

Foodchain issues/local, global effects