History of safe use of small RNAs in food

The small RNA compounds in our food are in the news:
What’s the News: It’s no secret that having lunch messes with your biochemistry. Once that sandwich hits your stomach, genes related to digestion have been activated and are causing the production of the many molecules that help break food down. But a new study suggests that the connection between your food’s biochemistry and your own may be more intimate than we thought. Tiny RNAs usually found in plants have been discovered circulating in blood, and animal studies indicate that they are directly manipulating the expression of genes.

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Want to study relative risks of GE?

Last Thursday, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) posted a new grant – one that readers of Biofortified might be interested to read about. Called the Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants Program, (PDF) this grant for up to $1 million for each project is for scientists who want to study the environmental risks of genetic engineering in agriculture.

What kinds of environmental risks? Things like basic genetics research, comparing breeding to biotechnology, and downstream effects of environmental release. There is even a section for it you want to submit a research proposal to study co-existence between GE and non-GE crops. You could even study pyramided, or “stacked” GE crops and compare them to single-transgene varieties. So many possibilities.

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Science: What’s it up to?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Weathering Fights – Science: What’s It Up To?
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Best Quote: “Why are Surgeons the only ones allowed to perform Surgeries? (…) And the only other people who can check to make sure that they’re not manipulating…”

“Are other scientists!”

“They’re very smart, these scientists.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

The Daily Show hits the nail on the head on science, once again. Any DS clips on genetic engineering?

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Brazilian virus-resistant beans

A homemade, high potential benefit-driven development from the public sector

Beans are an important food item, mostly in the developing world. Unfortunately, the golden mosaic virus infection is a serious constraint causing severe grain losses in Brazil and South America. The National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) approved the genetically modified golden mosaic virus-resistant beans developed by the Brazilian public Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) linked to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. This work is an example of a public-sector effort to develop useful traits, such as resistance to a devastating disease, in an “orphan crop” cultivated by poor farmers throughout Latin America. It is a milestone as it is the first fully “publicly funded homemade” recombinant biotechnology crop improvement strategy that has reached this stage in a developing country.

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Genetic Engineering vs. Breeding

“Many administrators, private and public, have decided that the future of plant breeding lies in genomics, relying on claims that molecular genetics has revolutionized the time frame for product development. ‘Seldom has it been pointed out that it is going to take as long to breed a molecular engineering gene into a successful cultivar as it takes for a natural gene’” - Goodman 2002

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Biofortified's volunteer authors are devoted to providing factual information and fostering discussion about agriculture, especially plant genetics and genetic engineering. The site is written by grad students, professors, and guest experts. Meet our authors on the Authors page.

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