From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Oct 10 1999 - 11:45:35 MDT
On Sat, 9 Oct 1999, Ken Clements wrote:
> Re: nanochondria
Ken, if you have some pointers to these papers I would like to read about
them.
> Re: comments on E. coli that synthesize vitamins or suppress toxic
> enzymes.
I see no real problems here except having the tools to do these things.
I'm not sure if all of the enzymes to do vitamin synthesis are known.
I think we only recently cloned the pathway for producing Vitamin A
and that it was being put into Rice.
You have a potential problem that it would be preferable for E. coli
need to export them into the gut. I know that we do get some of our
vitamins (esp. B-12) now from our bacteria but am unsure whether this
is a symbiotic relationship (they give us the vitamins in return for
a nice home) or whether we actually are consuming the bacteria to harvest
the vitamins [violence in our gut, news at 11... :-)].
A simplified discussion is at:
http://www.familyhealthnews.com/art_probiotic_bacteria.htm
>
> Of course, there would be some difficulties. First comes the general
> acceptance of anything that is genetically engineered.
Well, if you point out the fact that people consume Acidophilus
milk or natural (live) yogurt, the only thing you have to get
over is the GE hurdle. Since we have been eating "passive" GE
food (selected for traits we like such as insect resistance
due to higher levels of "natural" pesticides) for years the
only difference is in moving to "active" GE food. I think in
this debate it is important to *stress* that anyone who isn't
an primitive individual living off of what they can dig, harvest
or hunt in a forrest or a savanna *is* on the slippery slope
of "engineered" products. If you can get them to agree that that
is the case they are going to have to squirm a little to justify
what "interventions" by man they allow and what "interventions"
they reject. [The "acceptance of everything we have previously
engineered but nothing new" position doesn't cut it in my opinion...]
If they classify "GE" as putting genes into plants that were never
there in the first place, it is useful to point out that nature
*does* this *all* the time. One of the primary vehicles used
to carry genes into plants is a *natural* plant virus (Agrobacterium
tumifaciens) that *nature* designed to do that. All we do
with GE is speed the process up -- if you wait long enough
nature would probably transfer all genes into all organisms
(whether they survive would be depend on whether it provided
a selective advantage).
So -- what the GE luddites presumably want natural "unconscious"
evolution. [It is interesting in the whole Monarch butterfly
vs. bt-toxin engineered plants debate that I don't think anyone
has discussed the ethics involved -- why is it ok for a plant
to "naturally" evolve toxins that kill butterflys but is it not
ok for humans to engineer such plants? It is interesting to
consider the "life-cycle" of locusts. I suspect that if they
were present every year the plants would rapidly evolve a
defense. However since they only come back infrequently
the plants lack the necessary selection pressure to evolve
locust killing toxins.]
> Then there is the fear that something living inside of you may
> mutate to be unsafe.
Generally speaking "lab" E-coli are pretty soft in the natural
world (they have evolved for the "soft" life). I'd say you
were more at risk for your natural bacteria mutating
(all 40 trillion of them...).
> One would not expect the vitamin companies to be too happy about this
> new development.
Yep, vitamin companies are a big industry. The quantity of Vitamin
C produced each year is huge (e.g. Takeda prduces 20,000 tons annually).
However you can assume that they are working on cloning these genes
and putting them into plants if they think it will lower their
production costs.
Then you can always bring people into an interesting discussion --
Whould you rather have your vitamins produced by "natural" bacteria living
in your body or would you rather have them produced by big corporations
in large potentially environmentally damaging chemical plants?
[Most, if not all, chemical plants produce products at high temperatures
to speed up the reactions so they presumably are all contributing to
global warming.]
> Could we get going this way? Do you think this is a valuable step?
We are presumably on the road.
> Would the existing research community fund it?
It is already. Though not to the degree something like cancer research is.
With the exception of HIV (too much) or Aging (too little), where
political activities and poor perception, respectively, create
significant distortions, the (govt) research dollars are distributed
to a large degre in relation to the [perceived] size of the problem.
> Do you think the political problems will be solvable?
As I point out above if you apply education and rational thought to
the problem(s), you either get people to accept the ideas or conclude
that they are irrational.
> If not, what human modification will be accepted, and when?
If you look at the cosmetic surgery industry I think you can
find a number of examples of what "human modifications" are
currently accepted. If you talk to two of my brothers who
had to have their knees done after walking became extremely
painful you have another example of acceptable "modifications".
As I've tried to point out with OWB, when the benefits are
demonstrable and concrete and impact you where it counts
(in the wallet or in your quality of life) people will
flock to them. [Most] People don't object to vaccines
or toilets or surcharges on their sewar bills to pay for
the treatment plants (with the bacteria) to clean up their waste
stream before returning it to nature. Demonstrable,
"unnatural" things that contribute to our health and well-being
in environmentally friendly ways (and don't cost "too" much
will succeed). The problem with a lot of GE now is that
the cost-benefit balance isn't very good.
Robert
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