The Genetics Controversy - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 129

principle, virtually any molecule produced by the human body can be
made in a genetically modified animal or plant. Human proteins can be
grown and harvested like any other crop. The current technology involves
fermentation with micro-organisms in a bioreactor; but 'pharming' with
genetic modification is likely to be more controllable and efficient. Sheep
and pigs have already been modified to produce human proteins in their
milk, such as insulin, interferon, and the human blood-clotting protein
factor-eight, which is vital for haemophilia sufferers because it is free from
human viruses. Rice has also been engineered in California to produce
alpha-antitrypsin, a human protein used to treat liver disease and haem-
orrhages. The transgenic rice is grown normally, harvested and allowed
to malt. Normally, it produces an enzyme that turns starch into sugars,
but it has been modified to produce the human protein rather than the
enzyme. In the UK, alpha-antitrypsin is produced by transgenic sheep, and
Dolly, the first cloned sheep, was created in order to allow multiple copies
to be made of animals without diluting valuable genetic traits through
conventional breeding.
During the late 1990s, genetically modified organisms were producing
one quarter of all insulin, growth hormone, hepatitis-B vaccine, and
monoclonal antibodies needed for cancer treatment. Today, other medical
applications under development include gene treatments for multiple
sclerosis sufferers, and blood vessel drenches with DNA to encourage
human hearts to grow their own bypasses. All of these medical applic-
ations are likely to bring substantial public and consumer benefit, though
none is, of course, entirely without risk.
Most of the agricultural applications of genetic modification to date
represent changes to 'input-traits', or genes that control specific plant
functions, such as herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. Many new
developments will be in so-called 'output-traits', in which farm products
could be redesigned to meet specific farmers' circumstances or customers'
needs, though whether these represent desirable or low-risk opportunities
is another matter. Plants and animals could be modified to deliver a wide
range of drugs, plastics, oils, human proteins and other products of social
value. In future, some farms (or perhaps 'pharms') will produce these
products rather than just food or fibre. Plants could be engineered with
drought, salt, thermo, frost and aluminium tolerance, so that degraded
and hostile environments could be opened up for food production. Some
10 per cent of the irrigated land in the world (27 million hectares) suffers
from extreme salinity, and a further 20 per cent has symptoms of salt
damage. Could these lands be turned into productive ones? Work is also
underway to incorporate genes from a cold-dwelling fish into sugar beet,