10 Amazing GMOs that you need to know about

Most people are familiar with just three types of “GMOs:” corn, soy and beets (usually they can even cite glyphosate resistance or the Bt trait!). But dozens of GMOs exist and they have been used to benefit human health, animal welfare and to safeguard the environment for over 30 years.

Here are some GMOs you may have never heard about, or realised why they were created in the first place!!!

1) Cheese — Do you eat cheese?! Who doesn’t!? Once upon a time, the veal calf industry was booming, and we used calf stomach rennet (enzymes that coagulate milk into curd) to make cheese.

But as our concern for animal welfare grew, and our use of veal calves fell, we needed to find an alternate source of cheese-making enzymes.

We now use bioengineered chymosin to protect the welfare of veal calves and to have a cheap and virtually limitless supply of enzymes, responsible for over 90 per cent of cheese consumed today.

2) Insulin – For 60 years after the discovery that injected insulin could treat diabetes, diabetics relied on insulin purified from animals, primarily cattle and pigs. Animal insulin works well on the whole, but is not an exact match with the human hormone, and it sometimes causes adverse reactions, such as skin rashes.

In 1978 insulin became the first human protein to be manufactured through biotechnology. Today all insulin for human use is manufactured from GM bacteria.

3) Vaccines — indisputably lifesaving, vaccines are produced in chicken eggs, human cell lines or bacteria, all genetically modified to produce the antigen of choice.

4) Golden Rice — This is a great example of improving a non-nutrient dense, staple food source that is heavily consumed in very poor countries. One hundred and ninety million children and 19 million pregnant women are at risk for vitamin A deficiency. The genes to make vitamin A in Golden Rice were transferred from daffodils, a bacterium and maize.

5) Papaya  (PAWPAW)— The entire papaya industry in the U.S. was nearly decimated by the papaya ringspot virus. GMOs saved the entire industry!

6) Potatoes — GMO potatoes were approved by the FDA last year. Potatoes naturally contain a precursor to acrylamide, a cancer-causing chemical that is produced when potatoes are cooked at high temperatures (just like we enjoy them, fried!). The gene was modified so the potatoes will produce less of the chemical precursor. Nothing was added, that is why they are called “Innate.” Additionally, a gene was modified to reduce bruising and browning. This was the same gene that was modified in the “Arctic Apple” (a variety of GM apple that doesn’t turn brown when it is cut).

For those who are interested in an in-depth explanation, these potato varieties each involved transformation for two traits (the genes related to expression of black spot bruise and asparagine, and the genes related to reducing sugars in tubers) for a total of 10 events, which were done separately by RNAi (RNA Interference). Reducing food waste from bruising and browning will save hundreds of thousands of pounds of carbon emissions per year!

7) Interferon — A protein used to treat multiple sclerosis, autoimmune disorders and in some cancer treatments. As a society we rely on drugs produced by GM bacteria!

8) Blood clotting treatments  – For strokes, blood clots and blood clotting disorders  —  example, the drug, ATryn, is an anticoagulant that reduces the probability of blood clots during surgery or childbirth. It is extracted from genetically modified goat’s milk.

9) Cotton — 50 per cent more cotton is produced worldwide today on the same amount of land as compared to 40 some years ago. Some countries have reduced their cotton insecticide use by up to 90 per cent.

10) Salmon — it’s no secret that wild salmon populations have been overfished and stressed by climate change. Commercial fishing, and human-caused habitat destruction have contributed to the lowest salmon population observed since the 1970s. A new genetically engineered Atlantic salmon variety contains a gene from Pacific Salmon to increase the growth rate from the usual three years to 18 months. This and other technological advances enable the fish to be grown on land, which could help us to build a U.S-based salmon industry (95 per cent of our salmon is imported) and also help us to protect our oceans from over fishing. —B4FA/GB

The author is the founder of 32ATPs, and is a scientist, teacher, consultant, advisor and author.