Prof. David McConnel, of Trinity College, Dublin who represented the European Action on Global Life Sciences (EAGLES), described the organization’s objective to benefit all, not just developed countries, by establishing and developing a platform for outstanding scientists from the Developing Countries and Emerging Economies (DECs) in the life sciences and biotechnology to:
• Give voice in Europe through various consultations and dialogues to the needs and competencies of the DECs;
• Apply European competencies for the benefit of the poor and needy; and
• Strengthen the global responsibilities of EU programs in research, education, innovation, application and implementation.
A few years ago, Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace and who served as its president at one time, felt the need to stand for something rather than against something. He considers the current Greenpeace assault on biotechnology a direct result of the collapse of the Berlin Wall when leftists moved in and began to use Greenpeace language. He describes environmental extremism as an abandonment of science and technology. Indeed, he believes Greenpeace is now defined as being anti-human, anti-science and technology, anti-trade and globalization, anti-business, and anti-civilization.
To help address current concerns, Dr. Moore refers to the Sensible Environmentalist. The concerns of such an environmentalist are renewable energy and materials, voluntary population management, development of logically consistent global analysis, increased wood usage, learning to be better gardeners of the Earth, controlling urban sprawl, and reversing deforestation in the tropics.
Panelists from Genentech, Affymetrix, IBM and Invitrogen provided the following insights regarding future developments in biotechnology.
Traditional biology will morph into systems biology. Heretofore, research has consisted of examining phenomena and then testing hypotheses. In the actual world, processes occur in a complex, ever-changing system. Thus, the birth of systems biology that integrates huge amounts of data to develop models and generate hypotheses. The idea that one gene may be correlated with a specific disease may no longer hold. With vast amounts of data generated by traditional biology coupled with the massive capability that information technology can put to bear on genomics, the best gains in maintaining health lie ahead. The gains will likely be in predictive capability.
A scientist at the Missouri Botanical Garden (www.mobot.org) described how a staff of 150 people, 50 of whom have doctorates, have systematically classified and kept more than 5.5 million species in Missouri. Some small amounts of samples are available for R&D work.
The research leader of the USDA, ARS, Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit (www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/) described US-taxpayer-paid services provided by this government unit. The collection focuses principally on crops, i.e., clover, sorghum, peanut, eggplant, okra, watermelon, chili pepper, cowpea, mungbean, etc. The collection of seeds and tissues from a large number of genera comes from 178 different countries. Plant materials are kept at 40C and -180C. Seeds are replanted before degradation commences. 87.2 percent of 72,758 accessions are backed up. Anybody in the world can request and get a small amount of sample from this facility.
While these two agencies willingly share genetic resources, many small countries put up enormous barriers to development of existing genetic stock without putting up resources to catalogue, let alone maintain, their genetic diversity. A balance must be made to encourage developers to invest resources while ensuring that the interests of indigenous people are protected.
A farmer from that state grows corn containing molecules of pharmaceutical value. To successfully produce these molecules in commercial quantities, there must be certainty that the crop used to produce them is adequately sequestered. He showed photographs of his farm where the transgenic corn is grown in the middle of soybeans. He described measures to ensure that all the corn is destroyed after harvest. The next step in the production of the desired molecules is extraction and isolation. This is done using modern chemical methods. Growing the crop and producing the desired molecules has been made possible by cooperation among regulators, the industry, educational institutions and farmers. A panel evaluates risks, an advisory board examines the work, and a legal firm maintains a risk management system. All throughout the project, there is communication, particularly with regulatory agencies. Nonetheless, because this manner of producing drug molecules is so novel, some aspects of the whole process are still under evaluation. If successful, this manner of producing molecules of medical value by producing them in crops will provide inexpensive, uniform, quality drugs.
Australia has huge potential, being a major exporter of wheat and canola. With its constraints (fragile, low nutrition soils and limited water), it must adopt the world’s best practice and technology. Genetically modified cotton and canola have been assessed to offer distinct advantages. The regulatory system of Australia’s federal government has a transparent, clearly defined process in line with world standards in evaluating process. Unfortunately, the state system thus far has been characterized by lack of a defined process to evaluate key issues driving the moratoria, varying levels of transparency, inconsistent treatment of evidence, and inconsistent policy across the states.
A spokesman for the International Biotechnology Regulatory Services who was present at the meeting of the parties for implementation of the Cartagena Protocol in February 2004 in Kuala Lumpur bewailed the fact that the agricultural biotechnology proponents at that meeting were badly outnumbered by people who were against agricultural biotechnology. For advocates of GMOs, there must be involvement in all events which affect agricultural biotechnology. He said the Cartagena Protocol is flawed in that it does not emphasize the benefits that biotechnology offers and makes no distinction as to whether developers of the technology are huge multinational companies or the public sector. In fact, a substantial portion of the development of innovative research in agricultural biotechnology is done through publicly funded research. The public research community must mobilize and act as a major stakeholder in the international decision making process that seriously affects its capability to deliver goods to the public. Time to get involved is of the essence.
Quoting verbatim from newspaper articles, I described the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) tactics of Norwegian Terje Traavik. Responsible media, however, published the government and private sectors’ response to Traavik’s data-poor pronouncement. The lesson is that responsible media practitioners are an asset in counteracting FUD tactics. Again quoting from newspaper articles, I described how the failure of government institutions to arrive at a unified front may slow down more widespread adoption of GMOs in the Philippines.