JESUITAS, SHANNEN MIKHAELA

BSACC 1-Y1-3 STAS111

A RESEARCH ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPACT

OF GOLDEN RICE THROUGH GENETICALLY
MODIFIED ORGANISMS

Abstract

For a healthier life, micronutrients are important. Micronutrients are not created by humans, and
so they have to receive them via the food chain. Staple crops are mankind's primary food supply, but
other food items need to be supplemented since they are normally deficient in one or the other
micronutrient. By discovering the genes involved in the subsequent biochemical pathways at an
exponential pace, the resources to generate a variety of micronutrients in staple crops have recently
become available. It is certainly not in the benefit of human health to discard genetic engineering as a
viable alternative.

Introduction

Normally, rice does not contain vitamin A or its precursor, beta-carotene, either. But the last
decade has been spent by a consortium of European scientists seeking to improve this. Dr. Ingo Potrykus
of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in
Germany managed to engineer a beta-carotene pathway into Taipei 309, a Japanese rice variety, by
adding two genes from the daffodil and one gene from a bacterium. They revealed and named it as
Golden Rice in August 1999. The tiny handful of genetically modified grains of rice developed in the
laboratory of Potrykus at a time when genetic engineering is under siege in Europe, Japan, Brazil and
other developed countries, it has provided a much-needed public relations boost for the biotech industry.
The primary objective for the Golden rice is not malnutrition, but to gain greater interest and recognition
from the public, the science world and financing agencies for genetic engineering. Given this fact, a
pinch of salt can be taken up with the pledge of golden rice.

Discussion

Golden Rice can aid in the battle against VAD in South and Southeast Asian countries, where at
least half of the daily caloric intake is obtained from rice, notably among people who often rely on rice
for food. Golden Rice is used to conquer VAD in tandem with modern methods, like consuming foods
that are typically rich in vitamin A or beta-carotene, eating vitamin A-fortified foods, taking vitamin A
supplements, and optimal nursing activities. In order to minimize Vitamin A deficiency, it was meant to
be a beta carotene-enriched seed, a health issue in very poor regions. But farmers have never been
given it for planting. A child eating a rice-only diet would be sick because rice is a low source of
vitamins and minerals. For serious cases of VAD, genetically modifying rice to produce beta carotene is
at best a band-aid, not a remedy for a systemic problem. In 2002, Golden Rice research was shifted to
the Philippines' International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to be established for Filipino farmers.
Additionally, experts at Syngenta, a multinational agriculture corporation that had purchased
commercial rice rights, started to create a new gene kit to increase the levels of beta-carotene. Golden
Rice 2, which achieved this, was released in 2005. Yet a dilemma emerged. Field trials found that other
genes had also been inhibited by the added genes and reduced the productivity of the rice, so breeders
turned to another case. Farm experiments in 2017 revealed that this rice was rising sufficiently. The
rice was sent to the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry, which in December 2019 approved it as safe.

Golden rice has been greeted with excitement globally. It has become an icon of all the
excellence biotechnology has to bring. Among other aspects, it is meant to demonstrate how genetic
modification, as the first generation of genetically modified crops struggled to achieve, will directly
benefit customers. It believes that in poor rice-eating countries where drug-based supplementation and
fortification have been unsuccessful, it offers a more natural, affordable and efficient alternative to
vitamin A deficiency. And in an environment where the subject of intellectual property rights (IPR) is to
sell subsistence farmers the IPR-laden golden rice technology free of price, dispute and confusion. In
rice-eating cultures, malnutrition is said to be high. But these health issues are not specifically caused by
rice intake. Similar to other developed countries where rice is not a main staple, they reflect the overall
influence of many causative factors.

Conclusion

Although golden rice's potential created many doubts to solve vitamin A deficiency, at the
detriment of more relevant methods, the machinery is being put in motion to facilitate a GE policy. In
tackling malnutrition and starvation, the best hope of progress is to allow greater use of cheap and
nutritious foods currently available and to broaden food processing processes in the field and in the
home. It is clear that Golden rice is a selling case only. But it will take away international and national
science priorities. Golden rice proponents state they would not like to rob the needy of the right to
choose and the opportunity to prosper from golden rice. But poor people, and especially poor farmers,
have long been denied the right to choose their means of production and their way to survive. Golden
rice is not going to change that and neither will any other GE crop be driven corporately.

References

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

Stone & Glover,” The Philippines has rated ‘Golden Rice’ safe, but farmers might not plant it,”
February 8, 2020

Lucca P, Ye X, Potrykus I (2000) Effective selection and regeneration of transgenic rice plants with
mannose as selective agent. Mol Breed (in press)

Kryder, R. David Stanley P. Kowalski and Anatole F. Krattiger, 2000,"The Intellectual and Technical
property Components of Pro-Vitamin A Rice (GoldenRice™): A Preliminary Freedom to Operate
Review," ISAAA Briefs No.20, ISAAA, Ithaca, NY.’

Hessler, Kristen & Whetten, Ross & Loopstra, Carol & Shriver, Sharon & Penner, Karen & Zeigler,
Robert & Fletcher, Jacqueline & Torrie, Melanie & Comstock, Gary. (2010). Genetically Modified
Foods: Golden Rice. 10.1007/978-90-481-8792-8_20.
 A RESEARCH ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPACT
OF AQUADVANTAGE SALMON THROUGH GENETICALLY
MODIFIED ORGANISMS

Abstract

For a fast-growing transgenic Atlantic salmon, known as AquAdvantage Salmon, which will be
the first genetically engineered food species approved for human use the U.S. FDA is currently
evaluating AquaBounty Technologies' Latest Animal Drug Proposal. AquAdvantage Salmon was
created by injecting a transgene constructed from the growth hormone gene of a similar species
(Chinook salmon) into a fertilized Atlantic salmon egg.

Introduction

AquAdvantage salmon, created by AquaBounty Technology in 1989, is a genetically modified

(GE) Atlantic salmon. The standard Atlantic salmon growth hormone-regulating gene was substituted by
the Pacific Chinook salmon growth hormone-regulating gene with an ocean pout promoter pattern. The
major difference is that the AquAdvantage salmon of AquaBounty develops quicker than traditional
salmon, and thus in less time gets to market weight. For fish producers, this is desirable because it
ensures that fish need less feeding, which is one of the key costs of aquaculture. This gene causes the
GM salmon to develop during the year instead of throughout spring and summer only. In around 16 to
18 months, this GM salmon develops to market weight vs. 32 to 36 months for standard salmon. The
FDA tested and found that the fast-growing salmon are as healthy as traditional salmon.

Discussion

The genetic construct of AquAdvantage confers a fast growth phenotype on the Atlantic salmon
and enhanced metabolic efficiencies consistent with low but sustained growth hormone levels. The gene
that encourages the development of the Chinook salmon helps it to thrive in less hospitable
environments. AquAdvantage salmon has the potential to develop in colder waters by transmitting this
gene, which uses the same growth promoter hormone in both species. The final result, both of which are
sterile females, is AquAdvantage salmon. This helps the exponentially rising AquAdvantage Salmon to
meet the market size of a traditional Atlantic salmon in half the time. Only all female, sterile, eyed eggs
and the resulting fish must be housed in AquAdvantage Salmon would be available. In 1989, the
founding line of AquAdvantage Salmon was developed, and in 1995 the FDA opened an Investigational
New Animal Drug (INAD) dossier. In 2009, in support of the submission, AquaBounty sent the last of
over 25 research studies to the FDA. The FDA sent its recommendations to the Veterinary Medical
Advisory Committee (VMAC) in 2010 and recommended that they be approved.

The VMAC, composed of independent experts from academia, industry and NGOs, concluded
with the conclusions of the FDA that AquAdvantage salmon is equal to traditional farmed Atlantic
salmon and is both safe for human consumption and environmentally safe. The regulatory review
involved an environmental evaluation of the planned processing site of AquAdvantage Salmon eggs in
Canada and the growing site of AquAdvantage Salmon in Panama, all inspected and approved by the
FDA. Essential elements in biosecurity for containing salmon from AquAdvantage and minimizing the
future environmental damage requires human, biological and environmental containment at the two
manufacturing sites.

Conclusion

As a groundbreaking appeal for a genetically engineered crop, AquAdvantage Salmon has drawn
significant scrutiny and resistance from animals intended for human consumption by anti-GMOs, anti-
biotech advocacy groups and the organic food industry, which are endangered by the more productive,
lower risk, food production alternatives provided by GM plants and animal biotechnology. By
compositional study, the department evaluates secure, effectively grinding up genetically altered salmon
and controlling and analyzing fish samples. The genetically modified salmon and wild Atlantic salmon
were not find to differentiate in these studies. There is a wild salmon fishery on the Pacific coast, and
some of its members claim that genetically modified salmon are an ecological and genetic threat to
natural reservoirs of genes. But there are Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) species in a separate
genus from the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). This suggests that they can't interbreed. Therefore, it is
unreasonable that AquAdvantage salmon would have a detrimental effect on wild Pacific salmon stocks,
not only because AquAdvantage salmon are raised in land-based tanks with many unnecessary physical,
geographical and biological containment measures to deter the escape of fish, but also because of the
fundamental genetic incompatibility of these two distinct salt genera.

References

Clifford, Henry. (2014). AquAdvantage Salmon - a pioneering application of biotechnology in

aquaculture. BMC Proceedings. 8. O31-O31. 10.1186/1753-6561-8-S4-O31.

Yaskowiak, ES; Shears, MA; Agarwal-Mawal, A; Fletcher, GL (August 2006). "Characterization and
multi-generational stability of the growth hormone transgene (EO-1alpha) responsible for enhanced
growth rates in Atlantic Salmon". Transgenic Research. Springer. 15 (4): 465–480.

Eenennaam, AV “The science and politics of genetically engineered salmon: 5 questions answered”
March 2019