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Biotech and the fight against famine
by Michael L. Riordan
Biotechnology, the now-glamorized
application of new genetic engineering
and cell-culturing methods, is not
being employed solely to produce
exotic molecules like interferon. Sci
entists and researchers are also turning
their attention to the more mundane
problems of food _production and ani
mal disease that are of critical impor
tance to the developing countries.
An agricultural revolution, say spe
cialists, is badly needed. Winston
Brill, a plant bacteriologist at the Uni
versity of Wisconsin, told The wash
ington Post recently that "the previous
dramatic rate of yield increase result
ing from breeding and proper fertiliza
tion seems to be approaching a limit."
Chemical-based agriculture is also
beginning to take its toll on the
environment. And because it is capital
intensive and requires a lot of spe
cialized information, it is often far
from ideal for use in the third world.
But experts assert that biotechnol-
. ogy could change all that. Over 20
bushels a year per acre of com produc
tion, for instance, are. expected to .be
added by the tum of the century as
genetic engineering and tissue cloning
open the horizons for increasing crops'
resistance to disease.
In the past few months alone, sev
eral advances have been announced.
Researchers at Monsanto Company
successfully inserted bacterial genes
into cultured plant cells, which were
then grown into whole plants. Tl).is
astoundingly powerful technique could
eventually confer many advantageous
traits - such as the ability to self
fertilize - upon crops like com and
wheat, thereby decreasing the need for
expensive fertilizers and augmenting
survivability in extreme climates.
Researchers at Cetus-Madison.Cor
poration, an industrial genetics firm, at
Washington University and at the Uni-
. v e r s i t y o f P e n n s y I v.a n i a h a v e
announced similar success in moving
foreign genes-into plant cells. Dr. Ken
neth Barton of Cetus, while hedging to
some extent by saying that "what
we're doirig now still has to be consid
ered basic research,'' acknowledges
that "the technology f manipulating
plants genetically is growing very
quickly."
As do most scientists in the field, Dr.
Barton finds it hard to estimate when
t\lis new technology will actually pro
duce improved crops, but he says that
"within the next year, something could
come out of laboratories around the
world that could eventually e_nd up as a
new crop in a farmer's field."
Although most of the cutting-edge
research on agriculturally applied
genetic engineering is being conducted
in the United States and Europe, bio
technology is increasingly recognized
as a priority by third world countries.
Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, Director of
the International Rice .Research
Institute in the Philippines, writes in a
recent issue of Science magazine that
"nearly every developing country has
plans or programs 'for harnessing the
tools of biotechrtology for national
development."
Plans for international biotechnol
ogy institutions are already be_ing for-
malized. Citing the "urgent need for
broader and more effective intema
tional. cooperation in the field of
. ,.
genetic engineering and biotechnol-
ogy," the United Nations Industrial
Developmnt organization (UNIDO)
is creating the International Center for
Genetic Engineering and Biotechnol
ogy, which will have at least 50 scien
tists, I 00 trainees and an annual budget
of $8.6 million.
Biotechnology may also soon lead
to a long-term increase in meat produc
tion in the third world. Using gene
splicing techniques, researchers at the
US D epartment of Agriculture
(USDA) and at Genentech, the San
Francisco-based genetic engineering
company, have produced a new,
experimental vaccine to increase
immunity to foot-and-mouth disease.
This highly contagious viral infection
of cloven-hoofed animals causes major
livestock losses in many developing
countr ies where the disease is
endemic, particularly in Africa, South
America and Asia.
Production of a successful vaccine
promises to be a boon both commer
cially and from the development stand
point, as it may help to halt a disease
that can kill up to 50 percent of infected
calves.
Dr. Douglas Moore, a member of the
USDA's research team, thinks that
small-scale field trials of the vaccine on
cattle in Argentina, Colombia or Brazil
could begin "sometime later this.
year," with an efficacious vaccine
perhaps ready by "the mid-l 980s. ".
Michael L. Riordan, an Inter Depen
dent intern, i s a slLldent at John s
Hopkins University's School of Medi-
cine and is concurrently enrolled at its
School of Advanced International
Studies.