UN STI Biotech
Transcript of UN STI Biotech
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Agricultural Biotechnology: Not Just GMOs
and Not Just for Commercial Farmers
Carl Pray
Rutgers University
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The Biotech in Plants: Defined by Research
Tools and Society Conventional plant breedingcrossing and mutation
Plant tissue culturemake a whole plant from a few cells
Genetic engineering (GE)also known as genetic
modification (GM) also Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs) Genomics and marker assisted breeding or molecular
breeding
New tools for suppressing or strengthening the impact of
genes
RNA interference for developing new biological pesticides and fertilizers
for pest control in organic and conventional crops (mid 2000s)
New gene editing technologies (NGETs)Zinc Fingers and TALENS
(mid 2000s) and Crispr-CAS9 (2012)
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What did GMOs do?
Enabled farmers to better control insects and weeds in
soybeans, corn, cotton and canola
Millions of small farmers in India and Chinamainly Bt cotton
Reduces insecticide use in countries like China where pesticides wereused to control pests
Increases productivity in countries like India where pests were not
controlled by chemicals
Improves human health and environment
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Biotech Crops Spread Quickly
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Impact on industry: Six major biotech/seed/chemical firms
and this may go to 4 soon.
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Agricultural research and development (R&D) spending by major multinational corporations in 2012
CompanyCountry of
incorporationSector of R&D activity
Agricultural
R&D spending *
(Million U.S. $)
Principal agricultural R&D
locations
Bayer GermanyAg. chemical, crop seed,
animal health1,517
Germany, France, Belgium,
Netherlands, U.S., Japan
Syngenta Switzerland Ag. chemical, crop seed 1,165Switzerland, UK, U.S.,
China, Australia
Monsanto U.S. Ag. chemical, crop seed 1,074U.S., France, Brazil,
Argentina, India
BASF GermanyAg. chemical, crop seed,
animal nutrition1,001 Germany, U.S., India
DuPont U.S.
Ag. chemical, crop seed, food
ingredients 553 U.S., France, Japan, India
Dow U.S. Ag. chemical, crop seed 427U.S., Japan, Argentina,
Puerto Rico
Note: * Estimate based on company annual reports
Source: Fuglie et al 2011 with 2012 R&D data assembled from company annual reports by Anwar Naseem
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Initial impacts of Crispr-CAS9 and RNAi on Ag
Make gene editing much cheaper and faster
Crisp-CAS9 a naturally occurring component of bacteria that they use to
defend themselves from viruses
CAS9 an enzyme that cuts DNA
Crispr a piece of DNA that guides CAS to a specific place on the DNA of
the target plant and disables, amplifies or replaces genes at the right
place on the plants genome.
Can precisely edit many target genes at the same time
Could get world out of the corn, cotton, soybean GM trap and
allow important improvements in stress resistance of
vegetables orphan crops, etc
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Early impact disease control and quality traits
Eliminate fusarium head blight in wheatdestroys crop andeating infected wheat causes severe diarrhea and death in
human and livestock.
Healthy soy bean oil 2017 in US9
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Change structure of industry?
More universities producing new technology for crops
Small ag biotech companies emerging from Universities doing
research on new gene editing technology - Calyxt, Caribou
Biosciences, Cibus, Arcadia.
Seed companies use Crispr to increase the productivity of
their breeding program
Massive investment in Crispr in China
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China probably leads US (and ROW) in
numbers of Crispr patents
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Will new technologies allow the development of
new crop varieties by small & medium companies?
Depends on how they are regulated:
If they are regulated like GMOs in Europe, large companies
will dominate buying small companies
If regulated like Canada (product based) then smallcompanies could prosper.
Small companies in China and India are likely to be able to use
these technologies anyway because regulators can notdifferentiate plant make from these technologies from others.
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Middle income and poor countries should
exploit these new gene editing technologies notban them with precautionary regulations
Big companies want to look good by helping the poor. So make
use of this impulse to get these research tools the small and
medium companies that will serve small farms.
Partnerships between small local companies and US, European
or Chinese companies can be developed with financing and
connections from donors and local governments.
Governments of big countries can control multinationals through
anti-monopoly regulation, controls on seed prices and royalties
and bargaining on technology transfer when companies want to
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These technologies can help meet the SDGs 1
and 2 reducing poverty and hunger.
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Flood tolerant rice
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