Presentations text content in The Science of Meaningful GMO Labeling
Slide1
The Science of Meaningful GMO LabelingOctober 20, 2015Elizabeth VierlingDistinguished Professor Biochemistry & Molecular BiologyUMass Amherst
Slide2What I want to communicate
What is my bias?
What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today?
Not all GMOs are the same!
Many foods made from GMO plants have little or NO GMO ingredients!
GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture
Slide3What is my bias?
Use
knowledge-based
processes to understand potential risks and rewards of new (and old) technologies
P
rotect the right for farmers to farm in
different
sustainable
ways (and make a living), and for consumers to choose foods of their preference
Concern:
O
ver-heated rhetoric is obscuring the risks and rewards of GMOs.
GMOs
will double yields and solve all agricultural
problems!!!
GMOs will kill you, or at least make you sick, and besides…it’s
MONSANTO
(buy organic
) !!!
Slide4I use GMO “technology” to put genes into plants for basic research and discovery.
Mustard family
(
Brassicaceae)Related to Canola, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage
“Mouse-eared cress” (Arabidopsis thaliana)
Research support: the National Science Foundation, USDA, DOE, National Institutes of Health
Flower with an added Green Fluorescent protein.
Slide5My other bias: All GMOs must be tested, and they are not all the same!
GM
crops are
evaluated by the EPA, USDA and FDA for:
Risks to human health
(toxicity &
allergenicity
)
Risks of
developing resistance
in target pathogens or
pests
Risks to non-target organisms
Risks from movement of
the GMO genes
Slide6What I want to communicate
What is my bias?
What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today?
Not all GMOs are the same!
Many foods made from GMO plants have NO GMO ingredients!
GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture
Slide7Slide8cera-gmc.org
The
Center for Environmental Risk Assessment (CERA): Dedicated to applying sound science to assess the risk of agricultural biotechnologies.
Slide9Types of “GMO” crops currently grown
Countries listed in order of number of acres
Note: There is NO “GMO” rice, wheat, peanut
Slide10Major genes in GM crops today
Herbicide tolerance (HT):
Corn, soybean, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa
“Roundup Ready”
Gene: EPSP synthase
Insect Resistance (
Bt
):
Corn, Cotton
“
B
acillus
t
huringensis
toxin”
Gene:
Bt
toxin
Papaya ring spot virus resistance:
Papaya
Gene: RSV protein
Slide11Because there are different kinds of GMOs
ONE “GMO” label is not informative.
Slide12What I want to communicate
What is my bias?
What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today?
Not all GMOs are the same!
Many foods made from GMO plants have little or NO GMO ingredients!
GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture
Slide13The four major
Macromolecules
of life:
(i.e. big stuff, e.g. relative to an atom)
Nucleic acids:
DNA
-
Deoxyribonucleic acid
RNA–
Ribonucleic acid
Store and transmit information
Proteins:
Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) –
Workhorses of our cells/bodies
Lipids:
Store energy (fat),lots of other functions
Carbohydrates:
Store energy, other stuff too
Slide14The four major
Macromolecules
of life:
(i.e. big stuff, e.g. relative to an atom)
Nucleic acids:
DNA
-
Deoxyribonucleic acid
RNA–
Ribonucleic acid
Store and transmit information
Proteins:
Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) –
Workhorses of our cells/bodies
Lipids:
Store energy (fat),lots of other functions
Carbohydrates:
Store energy, other stuff too
Slide15A GMO changes <0.001% of DNA, and adds 2 more proteins to the 25,000 proteins in the plant
Nucleic acids:
DNA
-
Deoxyribonucleic acid
RNA–
Ribonucleic acid
Store and transmit information
Proteins:
Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) –
Workhorses of our cells/bodies
Slide16Corn Oil or Soybean Oil made from GMO plants contains no GMO ingredients
– There is no Protein or DNA in oils or carbohydrates.So a product that uses corn or soybean oil as the only ingredient from a GMO has NO GMO material in it.
Contents of Corn Oil
Slide17P
roducts like Tostitos, even if made from GMO corn, will have so little GMO protein that, special biochemical techniques would be required to detect it.
Slide18What I want to communicate
What is my bias?
What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today?
Not all GMOs are the same!
Many foods made from GMO plants have NO GMO ingredients!
GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture
Slide19Worldwide, preharvest crop loss estimates: 13.8% due to insects and other arthropods11.6% due to disease (fungi, bacteria, and viruses) 9.5% due to weeds Other losses due to stress: drought, cold, heat, salinization
Total: 35%
Slide20The spread of Citrus Greening disease
We have no way to breed citrus for resistance to this disease, but it could be done with GMO technology
Slide21Disease resistant banana by introducing a gene from pepper
Resistant
Susceptible
Banana bacterial wilt is destroying plants in eastern Africa.
GM
plants carrying a resistance gene from pepper
are
resistant to the disease
Tripathi
, L.,
Mwaka
, H.,
Tripathi
, J.N., and
Tushemereirwe
, W.K. (2010). Expression of sweet pepper
Hrap
gene in banana enhances resistance to
Xanthomonas
campestris
pv
.
musacearum
. Molecular Plant Pathology 11:
721-731
.
Slide22Slide23Where to go from here?
Each crop, each “trait” (modification) needs to be evaluated separately.
We need more agricultural research!
To understand how to combat pests and disease
To move away from monoculture towards sustainable practices
A single “GMO” Label is NON-INFORMATIVE and MISLEADING.
Slide24Let’s make
meaningful labels
so that we can actually make an informed choice:
What GMO “ingredient” has been added?
How much of it is actually present in food?
Slide25https://sites.biochem.umass.edu/vierlinglab/
Thank you
Slide26
The Science of Meaningful GMO Labeling
Download Presentation - The PPT/PDF document "The Science of Meaningful GMO Labeling" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.