Biotechnology researchers have changed the way they work because of early public disquiet. Dick Ahlstrom reports
Genetic engineering holds great promise for the benefit of mankind, but you could be excused for thinking otherwise. There has been something of a public groundswell against biotech, against modified foods and genetically altered anything.
And yet for a subject that exercises so much concern, a survey done by Forfás suggests very few people understand what biotech is all about. In a poll last year it found seven in 10 people had no knowledge of the term biotechnology. And of the three in 10 who did know the term, six in 10 said they didn't understand what it means.
Biotech researcher, Prof Fergal O'Gara, has had to contend with this public mistrust, but believes things are gradually changing. He also says scientists involved in biotech research have greatly altered the way they work because of public worries.
Prof O'Gara is director of the BIOMERIT Research Centre at University College Cork, which is part of the Department of Microbiology. The centre has 25 full-time researchers specialising in the development of innovative biotechnology and in time will link with the new Bioscience Institute. This development will include three research groups co-funded by the Higher Education Authority and Science Foundation Ireland.
The public had no difficulty with medically linked biotechnology, O'Gara says. "You can clearly point to the benefits of that, but when you came to something like food, it became very emotive. Was it necessary to change the genetic make up of food?" he says. "As scientists we had difficulty in explaining this to people."
Early products such as engineered herbicide-resistant beets were promoted as beneficial because less chemical spray might be used, but people didn't accept it. "This wasn't a perceived advantage," says O'Gara.
The public reaction had a big impact, however, and now things are done differently. "Clearly the new direction is very, very much defined by past lessons," says O'Gara. "It has to be seen clearly to have benefits, health benefits and nutritional benefits."
It is a process called "reverse engineering", he says. "It is not being driven by what science can achieve." Rather, the researchers find a beneficial use for the technology and then work backwards into the science to see if it can be done. "Now you sit down with all the vested interests" including the regulators of the technology, he says. "That never happened before."
For example, concerns over engineered organisms carrying antibiotic resistance genes into the wild caused researchers to find a better way. "New techniques are now available so you don't have to use those marker genes," he says.
This new approach is seen in the projects underway at BIOMERIT, he believes. The use of the science is much more considered and any potential impact on the environment is examined.
One area involves studying the interaction between microbes and plant hosts. The object is to come up with natural microbial protectants that can keep insects and fungal infections at bay without having to use chemical sprays. The process involves biological control of pests by using engineered microbes that can respond to the plant's distress signals when under attack.
Another project involves "rhizo remediation", whereby a plant/bacteria combination can be used to clean up dangerous chemicals such as PCBs. The bacteria has inserted genes that only switch on when growth substances are released by the plant. These genes release proteins that begin to digest the chemicals in a process that could involve a sequence of engineered bacteria.
The process ends either when the plant is removed or the chemicals are all digested, thus preventing the engineered bacteria from developing in the wild. "You can build in a suicide system," says O'Gara to prevent gene persistence in the wild.