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Call for suicide genes to control GM organisms

January 22, 2004

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Government agencies should consider requiring the use of "suicide genes" or other biological tools to keep genetically engineered organisms from spreading artificial genetic traits into the environment, a committee of United States scientists has recommended.

The committee urged the US Department of Agriculture, for which it prepared its report, to consider "bioconfinement" techniques to help keep the organisms under control. These techniques would add genetic traits that make the newly created life forms sterile or cause them to destroy themselves after a time.

The report, released by the National Academy of Sciences, says that while many techniques are being developed to prevent genetically engineered organisms or their genes from escaping into the wild, most are still in the early stages and none appears to be completely effective.

Companies and scientists are developing a wide range of genetically modified organisms, including salmon that grow super-fast, mosquitoes engineered not to transmit malaria, and corn that produces pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals.

One concern about these transgenic products is that their genes or the organisms could spread. Fast-growing fish that escape into the wild might beat regular salmon for food or mates and disrupt the ecological balance. Genes giving crops resistance to herbicides or insects might spread to weeds, making them harder to eradicate. Pollen flow from corn engineered to produce a drug could allow the drug to get into corn destined for the food supply.

Much of the effort to prevent these effects has involved physical containment, such as growing fish in tanks, or crops in greenhouses.

The report looks at biological methods of containment, which it calls bioconfinement. These include measures such as inducing sterility by giving fish an extra set of chromosomes or exposing insects to radiation.

Bacteria might be given "suicide genes" that would cause them to self-destruct if they escaped. Crop scientists, too, are working on a variety of techniques to ensure that risky genes do not transfer to pollen.

The committee called on regulatory agencies to consider imposing such requirements on transgenic organisms when reviewing applications for permission to use them.

"Deciding whether and how to confine a genetically engineered organism cannot be an afterthought," said T. Kent Kirk, a University of Wisconsin microbiologist who chaired the committee.

Margaret Mellon, a specialist on genetically engineered organisms and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that when the Government commissioned the report, it did not ask the committee to consider what should be done in those cases where no bioconfinement technique is available.

"But I am encouraged that people - even in the Bush Administration - understand that there is a growing concern in the scientific community and in the public about the release of genetically engineered organisms," Dr Mellon said.

Cox Newspapers, The New York Times
