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Gene-Deletor: A Powerful Tool to Make GM Crops Safer
Dr. Yi Li 's laboratory in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Connecticut has developed a breakthrough technology, called “gene-deletor” (also “GM-gene-deletor”) that was published in the March issue of Plant Biotechnology Journal. The technology offers a powerful tool to eliminate all functional transgenes (GM genes) from pollen, seeds, fruits and other edible parts of genetically modified (GM) crops when needed.
The gene-deletor technology can be used in both asexually and sexually propagated crops to address the environmental and food safety issues raised against GM plants. Gene Deletor vs. Terminator Compared to the terminator seed technology, the gene-deletor technology offers several advantages. Similar to the terminator technology, the gene-deletor technology can eliminate the pollen- and seed-mediated gene flow problem. However, the gene-deletor technology is better than the terminator technology because it can remove all functional GM genes from edible parts such as seeds, fruits, tubes, flowers, leaves or stems as needed to alleviate the concerns over GM food safety. Furthermore, unlike the terminator technology that may pose potential problems for farmers in developing countries, the gene-deletor technology allows the production of viable seeds and the yield of the subsequent generation crops is the same as the non-GM counterparts.
Some News Reports, Commentaries and Questions about the Gene-Deletor Technology
-- Dr. Wagdy Sawahel (Austria. Please click here for Dr. Sawahel's original article):
"Scientists (Dr. Yi Li and his colleagues) have devised a technique (gene-deletor) that could prevent the flow of transgenic genes into non-biotech crops — and might end the long-standing debate on terminator genes.” “If this technique is applied successfully to other crops, it could allow farmers to grow non-transgenic and fully viable plants using seeds or pollen from GM plants — unlike the terminator gene system, which makes the plants infertile.” “The gene-deleting technique also provides an important step towards tackling the environmental and health issues raised against GM crops, including consumer concerns over GM food.”
--Dr. Yves Savidan (France. A commentary in France-based RECHERCHE-SOLIDARITE-SUD, “The (Yi Li's gene-deletor) technology completely revolutionized the debate about GMOs!”
“One can discuss qualities and defects of today’s GMOs. Tomorrow’s GMOs, on the other hand, with the gene-deletor technology, will have no danger to the environment or human health, since neither pollen nor grains will contain transgenes. This news should have made headlines of newspapers but very few knew including some scientists in the area of agriculture I talked to yesterday. I bet that if Li's article had concluded that GMOs are harmful for human health it would have already been abundantly relayed in all of our media!”
“The (Yi Li's )gene-deletor technology constitutes a true revolution in the GMO world. This is certainly the news of the year if not of the past twenty years, since the first GMO was produced. However, no French newspaper, no French media has made an echo of it.” “The French media are totally silent toward the gene-deletor technology.”
If you can read French, please click here to read Dr. Savidan’s articles.
“Everyone else seems to be lathered by that long god-bothering piece in the New York Times, so I have the new Terminator almost to myself.” "Here’s the story. On 26 February the University of Connecticut’s press office put out a story about a new tool to protect crops from modified genes. Nice spin!” “This (the gene-deletor technology) could be very big.” “One of the objections to genetic manipulation of all sorts is that the engineered genes will escape and create superweeds. “The technique could also be used to excise the offending DNA from other edible products, such as fruits, thus knocking out another of the big objections, the safety of engineered foods.” “The new system (gene-deletor) could even overcome the biggest objection to old-fashioned Terminator technology, that it would make farmers dependent on seed companies for their stocks, but it takes some chutzpah to advance that claim.” Please click here to visit Dr. Cherfas’ excellent blog.
-- Dr. Katarzyna Kopka (Poland): The following sentences were translated from a polish commentary article. To read the orginal commentary article pelase click here
"The GM gene-deletor developed by Yi Li at the University of Connecticut opens huge hopes for future of plant biotechnology". "GM-gene-deletor allows erasion of introduced transgenes from transgenic plants. This is undoubtedly a great step in plant genetics." --Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton (USA) asked Dr. Yi Li right after his gene-deletor presentation at the International Conference of Plant Transformation Technologies in Vienna, Austria, February 3-7 of 2006: “Have you patented your (gene-deletor) technology? Can we use the technology?”
Some News Reports and Commentaries about the Gene-Deletor Technology
Several news reports and commentary articles on the gene-deletor technology such as those by Sawahel, Krane, Krane Bian, Cherfas, Savidan, Lucht, Bian, Kopka, Funk, Lawton and others have been widely re-published in a large number of websites in different languages (Click here to see internet search results).
Please e-mail us if you have any comments, suggestions and questions about the gene-deletor technology or this website. You may read readers' comments by clicking here.
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