#Massive Escape of Genetically Modified Crop Into the American Wild Canola A genetically modified (GM) crop has been found thriving in the wild for the first time in the United states. Transgenic canola is growing freely in parts of North dakota,
Last year, nearly half the worlds transgenic crops were grown in US soil Brazil the worlds second heaviest user, grew just 16%.
Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild one modified to be resistant to Monsantos Roundup herbicide (glyphosate),
Sagers says the previous discoveries in other countries of transgenic canola populations growing outside of cultivation were often in
or near fields used for commercial transgenic canola production. By contrast, her research team found feral populations of herbicide-resistant canola growing along roads, near petrol stations and grocery stores, often at large distances from areas of agricultural production.
Of these, 80%had at least one herbicide-resistant transgene (41%were resistant to Roundup and 40%resistant to Liberty.
They also found two plants that contained both transgenes. Feral generations Sagers says the discovery of plants that are resistant to both herbicides shows that oethese feral populations of canola have been part of the landscape for several generations.
and proliferation of feral transgenic crops are ineffective. Current tracking and monitoring of GM organisms are insufficient
Sagers blames the delay in discovering escaped populations of transgenic plants in the United states largely on the lack of funding for research in this area.
Alison Snow, an ecologist at Ohio State university in Columbus, says it is not surprising that escaped transgenic plants have now been found in the United states,
But if transgenic crops escape and breed with related weed species, then that advantage could be eroded,
and bacteria it is possible to make a relatively inefficient transgenic strain that can ferment pentose sugars.
When these transgenic goats have kids and start lactating, the researchers will collect the milk
and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years#The milk produced by the transgenic cows is identical to the human variety
The transgenic herd of 300 was bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were implanted then into surrogate cows.
According to Karen Batra of the Biotechnology industry Organization Oregon-based ag journal Capitol Press, Under the agencys new two-year pilot project, biotech developers would conduct their own environmental assessment of transgenic crops
while the transgenic chickens still got sick and died when they were exposed to H5n1 bird flu,
While large poultry producers could benefit from this early type of transgenic bird, smaller backyard#farmers would need to wait until scientists create birds that can be bred on small farms.
That would be a means of ensuring that the birds these small farmers bred themselves still carried the protective transgene,
Like the normal chickens, the transgenic birds became sick with the virus, but they did not transmit the infection on to other chickens kept in the same pen with them
#even if those chickens were normal, non-transgenic birds. The study was published in Science. The researchers said they now plan to work on trying to make chickens that are fully resistant to bird flu rather than just blocking bird-to-bird transmission.
And a transgenic pig was able to pass on these genes by giving birth to two glowing piggies in 2008.
#Transgenics next wave of genetically modified crops could ease concerns over Frankenfoods Transgenic canola When the first genetically modified (GM) organisms were being developed for the farm,
who say that transgenic crops have concentrated power and profits in the hands of a few large corporations,
And are the foreign transgenes in GM CROPS spreading into other plants? These controversial case studies show how blame shifts,
True Jay Holder, a farming consultant in Ashburn, Georgia, first noticed Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) in a client s transgenic cotton fields about five years ago.
these organisms are referred sometimes to as transgenic organisms. A gene from a spider that helps the arachnid produce silk for example could be inserted into the DNA of an ordinary goat.
and public reluctance about transgenic crops is likely to keep transgenic approaches off the table for some time.
Missouri, announced that it was halting development of transgenic herbicide-resistant strains of wheat after US farmers expressed concerns that they would not be able to export the crops to other countries.
The transgenic option is open, says Keller, but I don't think we're going to see that application very soon.
European disarray on transgenic crops: Nature Newseurope has failed to reach a decision on whether France and Greece should be ordered to lift their national bans on cultivation of a genetically modified maize (corn) known as MON801,
and costs could be higher for other labs. The technique could also assuage a common concern about transgenic crops.
when we create transgenic plants, we insert the transgene somewhere in the genome, and we don't know exactly where it happens to insert,
says Wilhelm Gruissem, a plant biologist at The swiss Federal Institute of technology in Zurich. Now you can target the transgene to a specific location.
Timeline: Swine flu: Nature Newsa new strain of swine flu-influenza A (H1n1)- is spreading around the globe.
but they were not able to survive the higher concentrations of Cry2ab found on cotton bolls produced by the pyramided transgenic cotton.
Nature Newsresearchers have created transgenic maize plants that fight off pests by emitting a chemical to attract insect-killing nematode worms. 1the method,
they interspersed transgenic and normal maize plants, and infested the plots with rootworm before releasing around 600,000 nematode parasites.
Root damage by rootworm larvae was less in the transgenic maize, and 60%fewer adult rootworm beetles emerged from such plants.
And the approach could be combined with other transgenic pest control methods such as using genetically modified crops that carry toxins.
the leading producer of genetically engineered seed, on transgenic crops. The Danforth Center was founded with grants from Monsanto's philanthropic arm among others,
Transgenic aubergines put on ice: Nature Newsstiff opposition from activists has persuaded the Indian government to put off commercial release of the country's first genetically modified (GM) food crop,
The 14 october ruling by the Genetic engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) granted permission for Indian farmers to grow a transgenic version of aubergine,
Mexico's transgenic maize under fire: Nature Newsmexico doesn't have an adequate system to monitor
or protect natural maize (corn) varieties from transgenes, say prominent scientists concerned about the experimental planting of genetically modified crops.
In the past month, Monsanto and Dow Agrisciences have received government permission to plant transgenic maize across 24 plots,
The planting of transgenic maize had been prohibited for 11 years in Mexico, where maize was domesticated first.
transgenic maize is kept 500 metres away from conventional maize fields, says Eduardo Perez Pico, the firm's chief of research and regulatory affairs for the Latin american region.
If Mexico experimentally plants transgenic maize, it should be done with ideal experiments and a great capacity to monitor them
and equip staff at two reference labs for transgene testing in Mexico city. The firm, Genetic ID, is a spin-off by John Fagan of the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa,
of UNAM's Institute of Ecology in Mexico city, questions whether the company's methods are sensitive enough to detect transgenes after several generations of plant growth.
Earlier this year, her group reported that Genetic ID failed to detect transgenes in blinded samples1.
Jay Reichman, an authority on transgenic testing with the US Environmental protection agency in Corvallis, Oregon, says that overall the combined evidence suggests that at least two transgenes were present within the plant tissues in question.
Reichman noted that Alvarez-Buylla showed newly grown test plants believed to harbour transgenes were resistant to herbicide,
indicating that they bore transgenes just like commercial seeds modified to be herbicide resistant. Fagan disputes the criticism.
Still, he too is against transgenic planting, citing the potential contamination of native maize: It is very, very unacceptable.
Lee created an impressive list of cloned and transgenic canines. Among them were three female afghan hounds (Bona, Hope and Peace, who Lee calls Snuppy's girlfriends,
and the first transgenic dog (a beagle, known as Ruby Puppy, or Ruppy, that has red fluorescent protein that makes its nose,
will become more widely used through cloning and transgenics. But Wakayama wonders whether dogs will ever catch on as model animals
or transgenic dogs could be somewhat problematic due to the prime place of the dog in human affections,
and transgenic dogs are piquing interest. He is collaborating with both the US National Institute of Allergy
Both laboratories are working on transgenic pigs that can produce tissues for transplant into humans. What we are doing is really
India's transgenic aubergine in a stew: Nature Newsindia's government has refused to allow commercial cultivation of what would have been the country's first genetically modified (GM) food crop.
On 9 february, environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced an indefinite moratorium on the cultivation of a transgenic version of aubergine,
But stiff opposition from activists then forced the government to put off commercial release until further discussions were held (see'Transgenic aubergines put on ice'.
Ramanjaneyulu believes that the environment ministry should now confiscate the transgenic brinjal seeds held by Mahyco.
and GTC Biotherapeutics in Framingham, Massachusetts, who produced ATRYN, the first FDA-approved biopharmaceutical (a human anticoagulant protein) from a transgenic animal.
A new dawn for transgenic crops in Europe?:Nature Newsthe European commission last week approved Amflora a genetically modified (GM) potato developed by German chemical company BASF.
Breeders of GM CROPS use antibiotic-resistance markers to spot which plants have incorporated successfully transgenes. They attach the antibiotic-resistance gene onto the desired trait genes,
and then treat the transgenic seedlings with antibiotics, which kills those plants that haven't taken up the foreign genes.
) Business watch Genetically engineered crops offer significant environmental and economic advantages over non-transgenic varieties,
transgenic crops now make up more than 80%of soya bean, maize (corn) and cotton grown in the United states or about half the nation's cropland.
Farmers growing transgenic crops are more likely to practise'conservation'tillage, which reduces soil erosion. They have seen also economic benefits,
Nature Newsa genetically modified (GM) crop has been found thriving in the wild for the first time in the United states. Transgenic canola is growing freely in parts of North dakota,
Last year, nearly half the world's transgenic crops were grown in US soil Brazil the world's second heaviest user, grew just 16%.
Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild one modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate),
Sagers says the previous discoveries in other countries of transgenic canola populations growing outside of cultivation were often in
or near fields used for commercial transgenic canola production. By contrast, her research team found feral populations of herbicide-resistant canola growing along roads, near petrol stations and grocery stores, often at large distances from areas of agricultural production.
Of these, 80%had at least one herbicide-resistant transgene (41%were resistant to Roundup and 40%resistant to Liberty.
They also found two plants that contained both transgenes. Sagers says the discovery of plants that are resistant to both herbicides shows that these feral populations of canola have been part of the landscape for several generations.
and proliferation of feral transgenic crops are ineffective. Current tracking and monitoring of GM organisms are insufficient
Sagers blames the delay in discovering escaped populations of transgenic plants in the United states largely on the lack of funding for research in this area.
Alison Snow, an ecologist at Ohio State university in Columbus, says it is not surprising that escaped transgenic plants have now been found in the United states,
But if transgenic crops escape and breed with related weed species, then that advantage could be eroded,
Nature Newsgenetically modified (GM CROPS can save farmers using conventional seeds even more money than those using the transgenic varieties,
And ensuring that some fields are kept free of the GM CROPS seems to be key to the overall success of the transgenic variety.
The reason for the conventional farmers'windfall is tied up in the effectiveness of the transgenic crop.
since the transgenic crop was introduced. This work provides strong evidence for the reduced pest burden for non-Bt corn caused by the Bt corn, based on a reduction in overall pest-population size
Uganda prepares to plant transgenic bananas: Nature Newsscientists in Uganda will next week start field trials of a banana variety genetically engineered to resist a bacterial disease that has been decimating crops across Central africa.
They were reporting the results of a field trial of transgenic Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in a town on Grand Cayman
Transgenic chickens curb bird flu transmission: Nature Newsresearchers have made genetically modified chickens that can't infect other birds with bird flu.
some with the transgene and some without. Most of the birds that received the primary infection died,
The researchers found that the amount of virus present in the infected GM birds was not significantly different from that in non-transgenic controls.
it costs approximately £50, 000 (US$79, 000) to produce a small number of stable transgenic birds you can characterize
She and Tiley argue that getting similar transgenic birds into global production would be possible
New york. Schat is paid a consultant for another company that is also funding research on using transgenes for disease resistance.
Missouri, are also working on transgenic maize varieties, hoping to tap into a multibillion-dollar market (see Nature 466,548-551;
Last year, South africa was home to the first field trial for a transgenic drought-tolerant maize crop,
Funding Golden rice funds The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving US$18. 6 million to research on transgenic, nutritionally fortified rice and cassava.
Transgenic grass skirts regulators: Nature Newswhen the US Department of agriculture (USDA) announced this month that it did not have the authority to oversee a new variety of genetically modified (GM) Kentucky bluegrass,
With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
Nature Newskenya is expected to become the fourth African country to allow the commercial production of transgenic crops.
The first transgenic crop likely to be put forward for approval for open trials and commercial release is Bt cotton
which allowed the commercial production of transgenic crops in principle. These regulations set out the details of how the law will be implemented,
For example, when seeking permission to release a transgenic product into the environment or place it on the market
Without the regulations, Kenya is unable to import the white variety of maize Kenyans like to eat as the majority of this is transgenic,
including transgenic crops, that will enable them to produce greater volumes for less money. But not everyone is in favour.
See'Transgenic harvest')Â
All eyes on the potato genome: Nature Newsa global effort has cracked finally the complex genome of the potato,
Brazil cooks up transgenic bean: Nature Newspaired with rice or steeped in feijoada stew, beans are an essential feature of Brazilian cuisine.
But this relationship could face the ultimate test as Brazilian scientists roll out a transgenic pinto bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) engineered to fend off one of the crop's most devastating enemies:
the transgenic bean uses RNA interference to shut down replication of the virus (K. Bonfim et al.
Nodari, a former member of CTNBIO who has questioned long transgenic crops, says that the commission improperly granted EMBRAPA's request for confidentiality regarding key aspects of the genetic engineering.
With approval secured, EMBRAPA must now conduct a further round of field trials to ensure that the transgenic bean produces yields comparable to those of existing varieties.
and Arag £o says that the transgenic bean could increase production by 10-20, %enough to offset imports
and environmental groups are concerned that transgenic animals might escape and interbreed with wild populations. In April, amid the delays, the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada,
a handful of investigators at US universities have begun already to study how diseases develop in the transgenic animals.
such as that granted to transgenic mice, but so far the FDA has provided not one. Although delays have driven nearly other GE animal companies under,
India s GM caution A cross-party panel of politicians in India has urged the government to halt all open-field trials of transgenic crops until it develops a better monitoring and oversight system.
the Parliamentary Standing committee on Agriculture in India also called for a complete overhaul of the regulatory system for transgenic-crop approvals and recommended that all genetically modified (GM) products be labelled.
including working to develop transgenic crops. They also point out some errors by critics, such as claims that graphs in the paper showing rat survival over time do not include data for the controls.
And there particular advantages of packing transgenic proteins into corn kernels. Cereal crops can be grown using established methods,
the transgenic crops should be grown in contained greenhouses to prevent them from escaping into the environment.
For some crops, improvements to heat resistance through conventional and transgenic breeding, for example, will help farmers to adapt.
For Van Eenennaam, a geneticist at the University of California, Davis, the scientifically unfounded assertions that transgenic foods are increased responsible for incidence of autism,
The US National institutes of health (NIH) occasionally supports research on transgenic pigs that model human diseases, but rarely funds proposals to produce drugs or vaccines in the milk of transgenic livestock.
An NIH spokesperson says that decisions are based on many factors, including the needs of the research community.
And China invested nearly $800 million in transgenic pigs, cattle, sheep and crops between 2008 and 2012, says Ning Li, director of the State Key Laboratories for Agrobiotechnology in Beijing.
One pig model carries a mutant transgene that limits the effectiveness of incretin, a hormone required for normal insulin secretion3.
Mice with the transgene developed unexpectedly severe diabetes, but the pigs have a more subtle pre-diabetic condition that better models the human disease."
and researchers hope to create transgenic pigs carrying genes that deceive the immune system of recipients into not rejecting the transplants.
when it patented a method for engineering transgenic crops to produce sterile seed, forcing farmers to buy new seed for each planting.
but bypassed the company by purchasing seed for a late-season crop from a grain elevator known to contain Monsanto s transgenic seed.
or a cell culture or a transgenic animal and using it to generate thousands more to sell again at a fraction of the original price."
One tactic would be to switch off the transgene of interest in seeds, so that they could grow into new plants
Another approach is to place the transgene under the control of a switch that must be activated by a proprietary chemical.
Transgene patents The US Supreme court ruled on 13 Â May that a farmer had violated intellectual-property laws by planting genetically modified soya beans without buying the goods from the crop s patent-holder,
Transgenic salmon nears approvalin the remote highlands of Panama, in tanks protected by netting, barbed wire and guard dogs, swim the world s most expensive
that it is withdrawing all pending EU applications for new transgenic maize (corn), soya beans and sugar beet.
since an Oregon farmer discovered unapproved transgenic wheat in a commercial wheat field, triggering bans on imports of US wheat into Japan and South korea.
But as an army of combines marches across the wheat fields of eastern Oregon, the mystery of the transgenic intruders is fresh in the minds of investigators at the US Department of agriculture (USDA),
Monsanto killed the project in 2005 over farmers worries that overseas customers would not buy US wheat if it contained transgenic varieties.
the transgenic wheat would flower and drop most of its seeds before the rest of the crop was harvested.
She has found transgenic crops in stranger places. In 2009, for instance, she found transgenic sugar-beet seedlings in a bag of soil sold to gardeners."
"There are so many places in the system where errors can be made, she says.""Once we release these genes into the field,
Sally  Mackenzie, a plant biologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, contacted APHIS about the high-yield offspring of a transgenic sorghum grass plant
Mackenzie thinks that the transgene triggered an epigenetic change: it altered the plant s gene expression by changing the pattern of chemical groups added to its DNA rather than changing the DNA sequence itself.
in part to exploit a loophole in US law that facilitates regulatory approval of organisms carrying transgenes not derived from bacterial pests.
whether transgenes such as those that confer glyphosate resistance can once they get into weedy or wild relatives through cross-pollination make those plants more competitive in survival and reproduction."
"The traditional expectation is that any sort of transgene will confer disadvantage in the wild in the absence of selection pressure,
The researchers also found that the transgenic hybrids had higher rates of photosynthesis, grew more shoots and flowers and produced 48-125%more seeds per plant than non-transgenic hybrids in the absence of glyphosate.
Making weedy rice more competitive could exacerbate the problems it causes for farmers around the world
because the genotype with the transgene would outcompete the normal species, says Brian Ford-Lloyd, a plant geneticist at the University of Birmingham, UK."
The resulting transgenic specimens have been in field trials for 18 Â months on contaminated ground in Australia,
It s one thing to flip a single protein as he did to create transgenic goats that produce spider-silk protein in their milk.
Or if consumer and regulatory resistance breaks down a transgenic banana perhaps crossed with Fusarium-resistant peppers.
Compared to the controls the transgenic trees grew an average of 13 percent larger after two growing seasons in the field and in the best case 23 percent larger.
which is controlled not by commercial transgenic hybrids that express Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry1ab but partial control has been observed by corn varieties that express Cry1 F toxins.
#oeit s unusual for any transgene to have such a positive effect on a wild relative
#oeour colleagues developed this novel transgenic trait in rice and we didn t know if it would have a fitness benefit
A lot of transgenes in crop plants are either selectively neutral in wild plants or if they have a benefit it depends on environmental factors like insects diseases
#African caterpillars resistant to GM maizelike many other transgenic crops Bt maize synthesises its own pesticide:
and used biotechnical approaches to develop transgenic plants that carried the Sr35 gene and showed resistance to the Ug99 race of stem rust.
what we know about resistance to transgenic insecticidal crops. Although the new report is the most comprehensive evaluation of pest resistance to Bt crops so far Tabashnik emphasized that it represents only the beginning of using systematic data analyses to enhance understanding and management of resistance.
The researchers can also confirm the flowering functions of these two genes using transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants. 85-meter canopy crane necessary for sample collectionthe Phd student Masaki Kobayashi his supervisor Professor
and lower-yielding non-transgenic hybrids may need adjusting. Researchers with the University of Illinois Crop Physiology Laboratory have been reevaluating nutrient uptake and partitioning in modern corn hybrids.
Current fertilization practices may not match the uptake capabilities of hybrids that contain transgenic insect protection
The study examined six hybrids each with transgenic insect protection at two Illinois locations Dekalb and Urbana.
Our Bd21 seeds will be of particular interest to Asian scientists who can use it to generate transgenic plants
#Goats milk with antimicrobial lysozyme speeds recovery from diarrheamilk from goats that were modified genetically to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one
Half of the pigs in the study were fed pasteurized milk that came from the transgenic goats
The lysozyme-enhanced milk used in this study came from a transgenic line of dairy goats developed in 1999 by Murray co-author Elizabeth Maga
#Scientists improve transgenic Enviropigsa research team at the University of Guelph has developed a new line of transgenic Enviropigs.
The transgenic pig synthesizes phytase in its salivary glands eliminating the need for additional supplements or enzymes in the feed.
When transgenic food animals are accepted by consumers the Enviropig perhaps would be one of the first innovations to be introduced into swine production said Forsberg.
They discerned dozens of changes in transgenic biomass samples each slight genetic tweak corresponding with a slight difference in the amount of lignin in the sample.
Another was establishing good manufacturing practices for biologically active proteins expressed in transgenic plants. Story Source:
In a new research report appearing in The FASEB Journal scientists produced a monoclonal antibody in transgenic tobacco plants that was shown to neutralize the rabies virus.
Producing an inexpensive antibody in transgenic plants opens the prospect of adequate rabies prevention for low-income families in developing countries.
Then the antibody was produced using transgenic tobacco plants as an inexpensive production platform. The antibody was purified from the plant leaves
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