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Human Blood Protein (HSA) From GMO Rice
eldavojohn writes "Wuhan University researchers working with the National Research Council of Canada and the Center for Functional Genomics at the University at Albany announced that they have genetically modified rice to produce a medically useful protein chemically identical to human serum albumin. This protein is used to treat burns, traumatic shock and liver disease at a global demand rate of 500 tons each year. Normally, this would be extracted from blood donations, but now you can just grow rice and extract it at a rate of 2.75 grams of protein per kilogram of rice. After testing on rats with liver cirrhosis, the same response was shown as the protein from blood. This is important for China after a spike in demand and lack of supply lead to fake albumin medicine flowing through Chinese hospitals. Worried about these GMO crops cross-pollinating regular crops? The researchers referred to a study indicating 'a very low frequency (0.04-0.80%) of pollen-mediated gene flow between genetically modified (GM) rice and adjacent non-GM plants.' Nature has a slightly more detailed article with a reference to the peer review publication."
It only takes one, right? What exactly is this supposed to suggest? That we shouldn't worry about it or that we should? It seems like math tells me that gene flow will occur with a near certitude.
Do they take us for complete idiots? "Very low probabilities of pollen-mediated genes" means nothing when the GMO crops are grown on large areas -- the "low probabilities" will turn to very large physical rates quickly, and we'll be polluting the gene pool with artificial junk,developed mostly by trial and error and guesswork, without consideration for the long and very long term consequences.
"Low rates" of industrial pollution nearly poisoned the environment in many industrialized countries and have required drastic regulations and expense for "cleaning up". This is the very same thing, only polluting in a much more insidious manner and affecting stuff that is much less understood than industrial pollution.
I know this is probably a ridiculous question, but... with this rice, what are the chances of a rice-specific bacteria suddenly developing a taste for human blood proteins?
(Sorry... I just shelled out candy to a couple of neighbourhood zombies, which got me to thinking about disaster scenarios.)
Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
I hope they got them into a rehab program too. Who the hell was giving these little bastards booze? They can't possibly be opening the bottles themselves.
Sorry, but you know somebody was going to say it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
My brain is fried and beer-addled, so I can't even begin to figure out how much rice we'd need to match the annual demand for this protein, but I can tell that it's a LOT.
As a supplement to existing sources (blood donation) this might be marginally useful. When the yield increases about tenfold, I'll be more excited.
Until then, it seems like you could save a lot more lives by just giving starving people ordinary rice. It would cost less, too.
500 tons = 453 592.37 kilograms 1 kilogram rice = 2.75 grams proteins (0.00275 kilograms) That means we will need 164,942,680 kilograms (363,636,364 pounds) of this rice to support the current need. With these odds 0.80% worst case is a bit scary... I do find it cool that they've been able to do this but the extraction ratio will need to be more efficient and, dare I say, safer before it becomes useful.
500. tons of HSA/2.75 g/kg rice = 181000 tons of rice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Of course I read it. That's not a zero-risk number, and the low likelihood could be touted as proof that the crop was copied intentionally. I'm sorry, but we've had so many issues of that kind with Monsanto that I don't take it on faith that GMO producers will be ethical. Read the post after mine.
Rice is a plant seed and contains an embryo, it satisfies dictionary definitions of organism:
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :
2. (Biol.) An organized being; a living body, either
vegetable or animal, composed of different organs or parts
with functions which are separate, but mutually dependent,
and essential to the life of the individual.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 :
organism
n 1: a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act
or function independently
Were that I say, pancakes?
Hmmm. You may find the following news story and its associated paper interesting:
'Escaped' Genetically Engineered Canola Growing Outside of Established Cultivation Regions Across North Dakota
The Establishment of Genetically Engineered Canola Populations in the U.S.
>>The researchers referred to a study indicating 'a very low frequency (0.04-0.80%) of pollen-mediated gene flow between genetically modified (GM) rice and adjacent non-GM plants.'
What could possibly go wrong?
A farmer who's crops were pollinated by genetically modified wheat from adjacent fields was successfully sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. GM plants let out into nature spread their modifications just like every other plant. So the question is not 'if' it will spread but what will happen when it does?
And we can finally sate the zombie's hunger.
Have gnu, will travel.
The main ingredient in "TruBlood" revealed!
Rice farms devistated by vampire bat infestation.
Rice-pudding and blood-pudding, now in the same bowl!
Monsanto sues Dracula for theft of intelectual property.
The Vampires will be going public any day now.
I think the point of the conversation was that the rice (living, not yet harvested) is a GMO, so you're essentially splitting hairs.
I would, however, recommend avoiding the organic section of the grocery store. Organic goods by definition cannot contain GMO products, and most of the ones I've seen state rather clearly that they're not made with "GMO ingredients;" ingredients which, of course, are "harvested and processed" and is labeling that would probably drive you mad.
I see no problem with it, because it conveys information that should be implicitly understood without resorting to arguing over exceedingly minor details.
He who has no
There are already companies that produce human serum albumin in yeast or the milk of cows at gram/liter rates as a marketed products. I have trouble imagining that this costs more than extracting it from tons of rice.
Wouldn't it be possible to engineer plants that require a certain chemical that's not found in nature to grow? This would prevent GMO plants "escaping" to the wild.
It is very easy to create a "knock-out" version of a creature which lacks the enzyme to synthesise a particular essential nutrient. This is done to mice and bacteria all the time for experimental purposes. The problem is that plants are harder to contain than animals when it comes to breeding, often it means plucking every stamen off the mutant plant, and in large samples, a couple inevitably get missed. All it takes is a wild-type pollen to land on a mutant-type stamen and you've got a new plant which is heterozygous for the mutant knocked out allele and the wild type. This is then fitter than it's homozygous mutant brethren because it can exist in environments where they can't. Thus natural selection screws up your experiment.
/s/wild-type pollen to land on a mutant-type stamen/wild-type pollen to land on a mutant-type carpel/
There's actually a term for that.
Though, I do think you're being somewhat unfair, and probably intentionally so. It seems useful to classify precisely what type of organism we're talking about. Would you prefer if someone were to state, instead, "Would you like some GMO?"
I'm joking, of course. You'd probably prefer if they simply dropped the O and stated "Would you like some GM rice?" This option would make the most linguistic sense and is much more descriptive.
That said, I would disagree that it's necessarily the same thing as RAS, simply because the exact contents of the acronym are not being repeated in some form (unless you had Genetically Modified Organism Rice and asked if anyone was interested in GMOR rice). It does sound awkward, and even a little redundant, but it's nowhere near as bad as "ATM machine" or "FOSS software." And again, I would argue that it's somewhat helpful: By stating GMO rice, it should be reasonable to understand without much fuss that the rice is genetically modified, and that the organism in question is, well, rice. Arguing over that is almost as absurd as arguing over precisely what shade of blue the sky happens to be on any given day.
In other words: I do think you're splitting hairs unnecessarily. :)
He who has no