Category Archives: Human Genetic Engineering

Kochi, Feb 25 (IANS) In the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh questioning the role of foreign-aided NGOs in opposing use of genetic engineering, union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh Saturday stressed that the decision to ban commercial use of Bt. Brinjal was not influenced by any NGO.

Answering queries from media persons on his visit here, Ramesh said his decision on Bt Brinjal was based on wide consultations with stakeholders, adding that the use of bio-technology for the crop to be consumed by humans needed to be carefully evaluated.

'No NGO influenced my decision,' said Ramesh, who had decided to put on hold the commercial release of the Bt. Brinjal in February 2010 when he was union environment minister.

Ramesh's remarks assume significance in the wake of prime minister's interview to a science journal saying that India must make use of genetic engineering technology to increase agricultural productivity, and NGOs funded by the US and Scandinavian countries were not fully appreciative of the country's development challenges.

Ramesh said that the decision to put a moratorium on the commercial release of Bt. Brinjal was taken after seven months of consultations with the public, various stakeholders including the states, farmers and NGOs. He said he had written on the issue to the chief ministers of all states.

Bio-technology in agriculture was not merely a scientific issue but 'political issue' as it affects human safety, he said.

Referring to his decision on Bt Brinjal, Ramesh said Greenpeace had accused him of propagating the line of genetic engineering firm Monsanto during a public hearing in Bangalore.

'So on Bt Brinjal, since I was directly involved, I can confidently say no NGOs influenced my views,' he said.

The minister said that there was no scientific consensus on Bt. Brinjal, the full protocol on the test has not been completed and there was no independent professional mechanism to instil confidence in the public.

'I did not ban Bt Brinjal. I decided lets put moratorium (on it),' Ramesh said and added he could not have ignored opinion of chief ministers who opposed it.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who supports Bt Cotton, did not support the move on Bt Brinjal, he noted.

'I cannot ignore states. Ultimately in agriculture, we have to take states along with us,' he said.

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Bt.Brinjal decision not influenced by NGOs, asserts Jairam

MANILA, Philippines - Different countries have different policies/rules on the use of genetic engineering techniques in agriculture and food production. Genetic engineering simply means that the genes of one organism are injected (cut-out and pasted) into the genome of another organism using the so-called gene-splicing techniques of biotechnology in a laboratory resulting in the creations of combinations of plants, animals, bacteria and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.

The products created through the technique of genetic engineering are the so-called GMO (genetically modified organisms) products or transgenic products.

The first genetically modified plants were introduced in the 1980s. Twenty years later (year 2000), genetically modified crops spread to about 44 million hectares of land from less than three (3) hectares in 1996. Common transgenic products include rice, corn, wheat, tomatoes, and soybeans.

To date, countries are not in total agreement as to the extent of regulations/rules the government should promulgate on GMOs. Some countries impose total ban on the production of GMO products because of the damage to human's health due to the presence of allergens, preservatives, and fertilizers used on GMO plants.

On the other hand, there are countries that impose no restrictions and allow the use of GMO products. Also, the reasons advanced using gene-splicing techniques are: it will result to bigger farm yield; higher profitability for the farmers; and cheaper prices of food.

Not many know that there at least thirty-two (32) countries that are imposing mandatory labeling for any product that has been genetically modified. For example, the European parliament passed on April 14, 2004, a rule that all products containing more than nine (0.9) percent of GMO must be labeled... including the labeling of animal feed containing GMOs. Once labeled, the GMOs are being allowed to be sold.

Yes, products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO) should be labeled as such. Also foods derived from GMO. This is the growing clamor of consumers here and abroad. And rightfully so. This is also adherence to the ''full disclosure'' relationship between sellers and buyers. And to use a more popular term for buyers - the consumers.

The consumers should be given the final option whether to patronize GMO products - especially food. Anyway, proponents of GMO products as well as those against such products both have the opportunity to sell their ideas as well as their products to the public. This is what democracy is all about.

By the way, there are countries that consider the use of labels to inform consumers in one country as a form of trade protectionism. Simply because the use of labels may limit the ability of GMO products to gain market access in one country. Different countries may also have different definitions of what is harmful to humans, animals, or environment.

The labeling of GMO products can either be initiated by the producers in the private sector or by the government. In the first case, the labeling is voluntary. In the second case, it is mandatory to protect the consumers. In mandatory GMO-labeling, private firms are held accountable for misrepresentation.

In the US, there is no federal regulation requiring the mandatory labeling of GMO. What is heartening to note though is that there are legislators in individual states in US that are crafting their own labeling registration. For example, Senator Maralyn Chase of Washington State has sponsored a bill that would require both raw GMOs and processed foods containing GMOs to be properly labeled beginning July 2014.

Also, ''Ireland recently banned the growth of any genetically modified foods, and the country has also made available a GMO-free label that can be placed on animal products like meat, poultry, eggs and dairy, fish, and crustaceans, that are raised with feed free of GMOs.''

Prince Charles also once called GMOs the ''biggest environmental disaster of all time,'' while agriculture industrialists like Monsanto swear they're safe for human consumption and a boon for the environment.

While biotechnology is concededly a boom to mankind not only in the area of food production and agriculture but also in other areas like environment and health - there are groups clamoring for the imposition of health and safety measures as there may be disastrous consequences in ''messing with nature.''

Why the so-called ''messing with nature''? Simply because one of the major branches of biotechnology is genetic engineering. The subject of genetic engineering involves the manipulation of genes in humans, animals, and plants. Admittedly, there are advantages as well as disadvantages of genetic engineering. These advantages and disadvantages have to be clearly articulated to our consumers otherwise the anti-GMO sentiment will spread throughout the country - especially when it comes to GMO food products. Food safety is understandably a major concern of cautious consumers nowadays - with the prevalence of different kinds of cancer and other diseases.

Finally, this question as to whether or not our government should impose mandatory labeling of GMO products - especially GMO food products should be resolved soonest by our legislators.

Have a joyful day!

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GMO Labeling

martin morrow From Friday's Globe and Mail Published Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 1:00PM EST Last updated Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 1:04PM EST

For years, Eric Peterson played a lovably cranky old coot on the Saskatchewan-set sitcom Corner Gas. Now the veteran actor is back in the Land of Living Skies and mad as hell again, only this time it’s not funny.

In Annabel Soutar’s play Seeds, Peterson stars as Percy Schmeiser, the hard-nosed Saskatchewan farmer who took on the agrichemical giant Monsanto in the 1990s after they accused him of illegally growing their genetically modified canola. During his long court battle, Schmeiser became an international spokesman for farmers’ rights and a little-guy hero to opponents of genetic engineering. But this work of documentary theatre, co-produced by Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre and Montreal’s Porte Parole, is no simple David and Goliath story.

Soutar – who first presented this play in 2005 with her Porte Parole company – has the tenacious instincts of an investigative journalist who is more interested in the truth than in advocacy. As a result, Seeds is dense with facts and arguments, rigorous in its presentation of every angle – and ultimately an overlong and unwieldy piece of theatre. Clocking in at close to three hours (with an intermission), it finally exhausts both the audience and, seemingly, director Chris Abraham, whose busy multimedia staging flags in imagination before the end.

Still, you have to applaud Soutar for not taking the easy documentary route paved by filmmaker Michael Moore – fudging facts and pulling heartstrings to get a desired response. You also have to put your mitts together for Peterson and his six multi-role-playing co-stars, whose performances are not just tireless but invigorating. They never fail to give vivid human faces and voices to the mass of interviews and court transcripts which make up Soutar’s text.

Soutar herself appears, portrayed by Liisa Repo-Martell, as a pregnant young Montreal playwright who guides us through Schmeiser’s saga. We follow her west, as she interviews the man and his cheery wife Louise (Tanja Jacobs) on their farm near Bruno, Sask. To hear the other side, she also speaks with Trish Jordan (Cary Lawrence), Monsanto’s brittle spokeswoman. Jordan vehemently maintains the company line that Schmeiser illegally obtained its herbicide-resistant canola seeds. Schmeiser argues that the seeds blew onto his field, but his real fight is with the notion that Monsanto can own the patent to a gene. Repo-Martell’s playwright-cum-reporter, her trusty tape recorder in hand, gathers opposing viewpoints from scientists, lawyers, academics and advocacy groups.

The first act centres on the Monsanto versus Schmeiser case. Despite Soutar’s attempt at even-handedness, Monsanto comes off as the baddie. Its slick lawyer, Roger Hughes (Jacobs), hammers at Peterson’s slightly befuddled Schmeiser in court, while a picture emerges of a corrupt corporation that has not just Canadian farmers, but the federal government, in its pocket. Everyone on the biotech side seems snide and superior, while Schmeiser and his disabled lawyer Terry Zakreski (Alex Ivanovici) are the sympathetic underdogs.

Act 2, however, brings a twist when the playwright belatedly interviews Schmeiser’s neighbours and suddenly the man is cast in a less flattering light. There’s even a mystery subplot, as she gets a lead on a farmer who allegedly sold Schmeiser those disputed Monsanto seeds. At the same time, her quest to find hard evidence that GM food is harmful leads her into the murky uncertainties behind the workings of DNA. The play spins out into larger questions about scientific theory, the role of the corporate Goliath in society and even what constitutes life.

Abraham navigates this ocean of material with a combination of theatrical and documentary-film techniques. The stage of the Young Centre’s Michael Young Theatre has been opened up to accommodate a screen wide enough for a prairie vista. There are two onstage cameras for live video as well as images and titles designed by Elysha Poirier. On Julie Fox’s cell-like set, the Schmeiser farmhouse is a cozy nucleus circled by sterile laboratories. The actors mime some scenes and use comic props in others. At times, the visual diversions are a bit annoying, distracting us from taking in the all-important words.

More subtle is the gender-blind casting, which doesn’t call undue attention to itself. Mariah Inger is particularly effective as various gruff rural males. Peterson, meanwhile, is note-perfect as the folksy but keenly intelligent Schmeiser, His climactic Sierra Club speech on behalf of farmers is a thing of homespun eloquence, made the more stirring by Richard Feren’s rousing score.

By then, however, Soutar has done such a good job sowing the seeds of doubt that you wonder if this is nothing more than passionate rhetoric. Her play gives us plenty to think about, but leaves us to make up our own minds.

Seeds runs until March 10.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Seeds

Written by Annabel Soutar

Directed by Chris Abraham

Starring Eric Peterson, Bruce Dinsmore, Mariah Inger, Alex Ivanovici, Tanja Jacobs, Cary Lawrence and Liisa Repo-Martell

At the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto

3 stars

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From these Seeds, a great polemic grows

London, Feb 23 (ANI): In a new study, scientists have found that an enzyme found in humans appears to lengthen the life of mice.

Mammals have seven types of enzyme called sirtuin.

Haim Cohen and Yariv Kanfi at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, looked to sirtuin 6 for their study, New Scientist reported.

They compared mice genetically engineered to have increased levels of SIRT6 with normal mice, engineering the mice in two different ways to control for genetic influences.

Male mice from both strains lived 15 per cent longer than normal mice or females.

But SIRT6 didn't affect females' life span.

Older modified male mice metabolised sugar faster than normal mice and females, suggesting that SIRT6 might extend life by protecting against metabolic disorders such as diabetes.

The researchers could not explain why SIRT6 didn't affect females, but suggest it may be related to differences in genes that regulate ageing in males and females. (ANI)

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Human enzyme lengthens mouse life

By Lynne Friedmann

Lynne Friedmann

Reviving a theory first proposed in the late 1800s, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have studied organ development in mice to unravel how breast cancers develop in humans. What they found were striking similarities between genetic signatures found in certain types of human breast cancer and those of stem cells in breast tissue in mouse embryos. These findings suggest that cancer cells subvert key genetic programs that guide immature cells to build organs during normal growth.

Stem cells in a healthy developing embryo have a “GPS system” to alert them about their position in an organ. The Salk finding points to a GPS system that is broken during cancer development. This may explain why stem-like cells are detected in breast cancers. Next step is to characterize the stem-like cells in certain forms of breast cancer to arrest their growth.

The findings appear in the journal Cell Stem Cell. http://bit.ly/AygIjG

Engineers build “no-waste” laser
Researchers from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering announce two noteworthy achievements in laser technology: the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date and a highly efficient, “thresholdless” laser that funnels all its photons into “lasing” (the operation phase when laser light is produced) without any waste.

The two new lasers require very low power to operate, an important technological feat since lasers usually require greater and greater “pump power” to begin lasing as they shrink to nano sizes. Furthermore, the nanolaser designs appear to be scalable, meaning that they could be shrunk to even smaller sizes – an important feature that makes it possible to harvest laser light from even smaller nanoscale structures. The small size and extremely low power of these nanolasers could make them useful components for future optical circuits packed on tiny computer chips.

The work is reported in the journal Nature. News release at http://bit.ly/w5NdTf

Heart hormone helps shape fat metabolism
In addition to exercise, a study at Sanford-Burnham suggests that the heart plays a role in breaking down body fat. According to the research, hormones released by the heart stimulate fat-cell metabolism by turning on a molecular mechanism similar to what’s activated when the body is exposed to cold and burns fat to generate heat.

The metabolic effects caused by these heart hormones (so-called cardiac natriuretic peptides) depend largely on the ratio of two different kinds of receptors — message-receiving proteins — on the surface of fat cells.

In addition to providing a better understanding of the breakdown of fats, more information about how this system works could also give hope to patients suffering from cardiac cachexia, a severe body wasting that can occur in chronic heart failure. High levels of natriuretic peptides are characteristic of heart failure and are used as diagnostic markers of the severity of the disease.

The findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. http://bit.ly/A7cjMQ.

— Lynne Friedmann is a science writer.

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Research Report: Old theory pinpoints new targets to breast cancer

23-01-2012 12:14 READ the VATICAN DOCUMENT HERE: http://www.endworldprophecy.com ADVANCED BIBLE STUDIES AND BREAKING END-TIME NEWS HERE: http://www.endworldprophecy.com Welcome to this edition of the End World Prophecy RAPTURE ALERT report. Rapture alerts are not issued on a regular basis, but only if current events overwhelmingly coincide with a prophetic themes in the bible. The word of God is very clear about how in past times the mixing of species was (and still is) a sin. It even records the rise of a genetically modified race of giants know as the Nephilim. This a common and well known aspect of history among well-studied Jews but is still some-what uncommon among American Christians. Unfortunately, because of the lack of knowledge the church supports the development of "industrialized genetic therapy". The Vatican both organizes and participates in a conference called "Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture." The Pontifical Council for Culture, aims to "support research and increase public awareness of medical treatment using adult stem cells", that means the study and manipulation of human DNA, and to get any viable result that changes the human condition experiments have to be conducted on animals first. This kind of testing has led to the combination of human/animal genes, something that God calls a sin and an abomination. Here's a picture of the result of one stem cell experiment in 1991. This kind of animal/human genetic mixing has accelerated to alarming rates. Learn ...

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RAPTURE ALERT! Nov 11, 2011 - AntiChrist