Genetically Modified Foods

For more than two decades, food chemists around the world have been engaged in an exciting new project with the potential for dramatically remaking the human diet. A number of new food products have been invented that are called genetically engineered, genetically modified, or, simply, GM foods. Research on genetically modified foods belongs to a long, rich, and very productive line of research known as...

History of Biotechnology

One of the earliest applications of biotechnology was probably the use of microorganisms to make certain types of foods. Evidence in­dicates that people first learned how to make beer, wine, and vinegar more than 6,000 years ago by promoting the fermentation of fruits, vegetables, and grains with yeasts. People have also leavened bread with yeasts and cultured cheese and yogurt with bacteria for many hundreds, if not...

Recombinant DNA Research

The research by Boyer and Cohen was made possible by discover­ies made two decades earlier by the American biologist James Watson (1928 - ) and the English chemist Francis Crick (1916-2004). In 1953, Watson and Crick announced that genetic information is stored in large, complex molecules known as deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. They showed how the characteristic arrangement of certain chemical groups, known as base pairs,...

Techniques of Gene Insertion

Over the past three decades, researchers have developed a number of procedures that improve on the basic methodology of Boyer and Cohen. One area in which progress has occurred involves methods for transferring DNA from a donor organism (or DNA prepared syn­thetically) to a host organism (a process known as gene insertion). Those methods can be divided into two general classes: those that use living organisms (called...

Genetically Modified Products

Recombinant DNA procedures like those described here now have a number of practical applications. One of the most promising is the development of genetically modified (GM) foods and agricul­tural products, substances whose genetic composition has been altered by rDNA or some similar process. Some examples of ge­netically modified products are corn plants that have been altered to emit a poison when attacked by pests; tomato...

Ingo Potrykus (1933 – )

One of the most contentious issues in the debate over GM foods has focused on the development of "golden rice," a food product that has been engineered to provide increased levels of vitamin A to those who eat it. Golden rice was developed in the 1990s by Swiss botanist Ingo Potrykus and his colleagues at the Institute of Plant Sciences at ETH Zurich (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich). Proponents of...

Controversy about GM Foods

The development of genetically modified food products has created a certain amount of controversy in the United States, the European Union, and other parts of the world. The level of controversy, how­ever, differs substantially. According to a poll published by the Pew Research Center in late 2003, for example, about a third of all This farmer is growing a genetically modified form of barley. (Chris Knapton/Photo...

Risks to Human Health

A small proportion of the population is allergic to one or more food products. Some of the most common allergies are to cow's milk, eggs, soybeans, wheat, peanuts, and various tree nuts. Allergic reactions to foods range from very mild to severe. In the most serious cases, a person exposed to an allergen has difficulty breathing, swelling in the mouth and throat, and decreased blood pressure, conditions that can lead to...

Environmental Effects

One of the most commonly expressed concerns about possible envi­ronmental effects of GM foods is that genes inserted into a modified plant might escape into the surrounding environment and be taken up by wild relatives of the engineered crop plant. Such a possibility exists, some experts say, because of the close taxonomic relationship among some crops plants and weedy relatives. Sunflowers, sorghum, canola, and squash are...

Regulatory Issues

The longstanding, often contentious, debate over genetically engi­neered foods has led to a parallel dispute over whether such foods should be regulated, licensed, or otherwise controlled by governmental agencies. That dispute has been resolved in two quite different ways in the United States and Europe. In this country, the federal government has taken the position that GM foods must meet the same standards of safety that...