GMOs Are Good

This is perhaps the most innovative application of GMO. This process involves the modification of animal and plant genes in order to yield edible output with preventive molecules, for example milk, eggs and fruit. Edible vaccines, produced in milk or fruit could ease manufacturing and distribution costs by making it globally accessible to people. Vaccination through injection has many disadvantages, including the need for medically trained staff, high costs, not to mention constant cooling during transportation and storage. Use of needles also increases the risk of infections. In these cases, an edible vaccine comes in handy. In recent years, there have been examples of transgenic plants developed by researchers to help developing countries. Transgenic potatoes which contain cholera toxins have been developed to immunize against diseases. In 2004, the Pharma-Planta Programme was granted 12 million euros to develop genetically modified plants to help grow vaccines against tuberculosis and rabies.

The objective of creating food with more balanced chemical compositions is to satisfy nutritional needs in human beings and farm animals. The next generation of genetically modified plants would have less anti-nutritional elements and higher nutritional content. Scientists will genetically engineer plants with high availability of elements such as amino acids, vitamins and minerals, which are considered beneficial to health. Development has been making headway with the most famous of such crops being the Golden Rice, developed with an additional supplement of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is the pre-cursor to Vitamin A. In developing countries, Vitamin A deficiency has been very detrimental to the health of children, causing up to 3 million deaths of children annually and hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood blindness. Bio-fortification of these nutrients could help save lives.

GM technology on crops may offer solutions to control pests, fungal infections and growing crops in particularly harsh environments. To achieve this end, scientists are developing pest-resistant, fungal-resistant and herbicide-tolerant plants. Some crops have been genetically modified to be tolerant of high soil salinity and resistant to drought. In Africa for example, climate varies from region to region making it very difficult to breed crop varieties for each region. Thus, the ability to design crops suited to specific climatic conditions is much more effective, and is beneficial to developing African countries. It also helps to control pests and fungal infections. GM crops have been modified to target specific types of pests like rootworm, unlike traditional pests which kill all kinds of insects without discrimination. They have been estimated to save on fuel because fuel is needed for farmers to operate machine spraying pesticides. This also reduces carbon dioxide emissions. In China for example, GM rice has made labour, energy consumption and costs reduce significantly because the amount of treatment normally required has reduced. This effect has compounded to a safer environment as less farmers are exposed to pesticides. The impact on other organisms like insects also decreases.

A majority of consumers are used to hearing about GMO application to food, but otherwise remain vastly unaware of its implementation in medical research. GMO is playing a massive role in the development of new medicine and treatment options. Scientists have been examining the effects of genetically modifying viruses and bacteria to target and destroy unhealthy cells in human beings. Gene therapy, which makes use of genetic modification, is fast becoming a viable treatment option for many people against many disorders including cancer. Many people suffering from anaemia are treated with a hormone (epoetin alfa), produced through genetic modification. For example in UK, scientists have been experimenting with GM viruses to target lung, ovarian, pancreatic, and liver cancer, in vitro. In tumor bearing mice, the modified virus replicated, spread and killed the tumor cells. Additionally, because bacteria is easy to grow and scale-up for production, it is a preferred option in genetic engineering. Genetically modified bacteria has been observed to secrete useful elements like soluble CD4 (a protein), which has been observed to block laboratory strains of HIV from affecting human cells. These are all examples of the benefits and promise that GMO holds for the future.

Bio-Remediation refers to the process of introducing external elements to breakdown environmental pollutants and detoxify contaminants. In this particular case, it refers to using genetic modification to break waste material to reduce its toxicity. The increase in number of pollutants in the environment is alarming, especially those resistant to degradation. Of all measures that have been employed, both biological and physiological, bio-remediation has stood out as the most promising strategy. Bioremediation is often preferred because it has several advantages over its conventional counterparts. Natural occurring organisms like bacteria, yeast and fungi have always been used for this technology to work. But if they could be genetically modified before implementation, it’s suggested that the effectiveness of the bio-remediation process could increase manifold. Various bio-molecular and metabolic engineering techniques are designed and employed to modify microorganisms, which in turn modify pollutants to become less harmful elements. Applications include industrial effluents and accidental oil spills. Usually, when the bacteria is released into the toxic area, it spreads, breaking down the toxic material into non-toxic wastes like carbon dioxide. The more toxins it breaks down, the more the bacteria reproduce and multiply and the faster the contaminants are destroyed.

Any logically sound business would want to make profits from GMO development. Farmers want a profitable return and at the same time, the consumer wants less costly food and medicine. The economic impact of GMOs is going to be felt on all levels whether we like it or not. There’s a complex array of varying factors which influence the pricing of GMO products, including labelling regimes in the global and local markets, marketing margins, consumer attitude towards GM products, and price effect enjoyed by non-GM products, among many others.

It is said that GM crops result in better crop yield. From statistical estimations, it has been seen that corn and soybean yield could increase significantly, consequently increasing farmer income. Scientist believe that with GM crops, the world could grow more food than ever before in its history.