Today, I've tried to give a basic overview of the science and technology involved in genetic engineering of crops. But I realize there have been many issues that I haven't covered. We haven't had time to go over the social issues involved in the discussion of genetic engineering of crops. These include legal issues for example, such as the patenting of genes, the patenting of crops and other organisms. And, of course, this leads into the problems of economical issues and economic interests of either large corporations, small corporations, large farmers versus small farmers, when dealing with the question of genetic engineering in agriculture, but these issues, as important and as complicated as they may be are not connected to the technology involved, and in the safety of genetically engineered crops. But what about scientific concerns? Isn't it possible that I'm missing something here, that I've ignored some valid concerns? Well most scientific concerns regarding genetically engineered crops center around several issues. The first such one is that in genetic engineering, we don't know the exact spot, we don't know the exact site where the new gene is being inserted through the Ti plasmid or through other technologies. And by adding this other gene, by adding the new gene, we might be influencing other genes in the area. This is a true concern, but I have to point out a couple of things. First of all, in classic breeding we also have absolutely no idea how the mixing of genes, how the mixing of the two different genomes, is influencing the expression of other genes. What I do know, is that in genetically modified crops they go through series of testing through the Food and Drug Administration that show that nutritionally, they are equivalent to a non-modified crop. This doesn't happen when we make just new strains through breeding. And this ensures that they are safe. I also need to point out that there is actually a very new technology. This is called CRISPR. And this new type of genetic engineering allows us to put a new gene in the exact point within the genome. Actually we can even switch genes at an exact place. And so in this technology becomes involved in genetic engineering in plants we will actually then, have plants we will know exactly where the new gene has been added. Another issue is one of allergies. When I touched them this briefly when we talked about peanut butter. So people have always been afraid that the genetically modified crops could lead to allergies against the transgenes. On one level there's no reason to assume that these new genes would be allergenic as these are genes that we are exposed to all the time anyway through the bacteria or the plants we eat. But I have to point out, that again, through decades of testing, all engineered crops have been shown to be non-allergenic. Another concern is the effect of genetically engineered crops, and actually the agricultural processes surrounding them, on the environment. Now we can go into how modern agriculture impacts the environment, what are the practices? Maybe this should be the subject of a new course on Coursera. So I don't really have time to go well into this, but I'm going to just talk about the idea of resistance. One of the arguments is, is that by using for example, a crop that is engineered to be resistant to a pesticide, or a crop that's engineered to be resistant to a herbicide, will then lead to the appearance of resistance in other species. Yes this is a concern, but this is also a concern in classic agriculture. Naturally resistant plants have evolved over the past decades and which is why we've always had to implement newer herbicides and newer pesticides. The pressure brought by using modern agriculture has led to natural resistance anyway. So this is a problem in modern agriculture. And we can think of how we can change the practice so that this resistance would not evolve. I'm clearly aware that for some of you, my presentation today of the material may have appeared biased. Or maybe even appear that I'm lobbying for some major international corporation, as one of my friends told me. I've even been accused of cherry-picking my sources, of only picking the scientific sources that support my own arguments. I wanna show you that I am not cherry-picking. I am using the scientific process which I do in all of my research in general. What that means is a critical reading of the literature, and then checking it with what's done in many labs once over again and again and again. I'm open to the possibility that there could be a study that negates, many of much of what I've been talking about today. When such a study would occur, then it will be dealt with, it will be critiqued, and if it's repeated in many other laboratories, then we'll have to change our approach or what our conclusions are. But I need to ask the question, why am I so passionate about this issue? Why is this issue of genetic engineering so important to me? And this comes to the reason why I'm a plant biologist. I'm a plant biologist because my main goal when I started out as a student was finding solutions for feeding the world. This is why I do my research and this is why I teach classes like this, both the students in the classroom and through Corsera. Now in order to feed the world, we need to have a complete toolbox, we can't have one of our hands tied behind our backs. Three things need to happen for us to feed the world in the future. First of all, we need to increase yields in a sustainable manner. Second of all, we have to reduce food lost on its way to the consumer. This is mainly in the developing world where because of lack of refrigeration a lot of the food from the field gets lost before it reaches the market. And in the Western world primarily, we have to reduce food waste. So much food is lost from the consumer on its way to trash, because of buying too much, of not looking properly at the dates. Or not knowing when food spoilage actually comes into play. I hope this class has helped you understand more about how plants live and survive and given you a better understanding of how important plants are for our survival. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your lives for the past several weeks.
