Генетически модифицированные продукты питания

TYUMEN STATE UNIVERSITY

INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGY

FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERCULTURAL PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genetically modified food and cloning

 

 

 

 

 

 

Submitted by: Polyakova Sofia,

38Bm139

 

Supervisor: Garkusha N.A.,

associate professor

 

 

 

 

 

Tyumen, 2014

Abstract

I have chosen two important problems - genetically modified food and cloning – for my report. The theme of genetically modified food is actual as every year it takes the greater place in our diet. People have different points of view about whether the genetic modification of food is a good thing – in fact it is quite a controversial topic.

It is obvious, that cloning of a human being has enormous potential advantages and some possible negative consequences.

The aim of my work is to learn these problems and answer the following questions:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified food?
2. Which are potential advantages and some possible negative consequences of cloning?

Key words: genetically modified food, cloning, problem, future

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Аннотация

Я выбрала в качестве темы доклада две важные проблемы - генетически модифицированные продукты и клонирование. Тема генетически модифицированных продуктов питания является актуальной, так как такая пища занимает в нашем меню всё больше места. Люди имеют разные точки зрения по поводу того, есть ли польза от генетически модифицированных продуктов - на самом деле, это довольно спорная тема.

Очевидно, что клонирование человека имеет огромные потенциальные преимущества и возможные негативные последствия.

Целью моей работы является изучение этих аспектов генетики и ответы на следующие вопросы:

1. Каковы преимущества и недостатки  генетически модифицированных продуктов  питания?

2. Какие потенциальные преимущества  и негативные последствия есть у процесса клонирования?

Ключевые слова: генетически модифицированные продукты, клонирование, проблема, будущее

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem of genetic modification and cloning is very important at the present time.

The theme of genetically modified food is actual as every year it takes the greater place in our diet. Many scientists declare danger of the use of genetically modified food stuffs to health. They warn that consumption of similar products is capable to lead to unpredictable consequences, including mutations. One of big problems of a condition in that area is that genetic engineering is being moved by extreme commercial interests. The biotechnological companies aspire to patent and deduce on the market all new products and new genetically modified organisms (plants and animals), not caring about what collateral consequences genetic changes can have.

To please commercial interests of some huge companies any precaution is rejected: in fact being guided by only scientific approach, it would be necessary to test some generations of plants to be convinced of their safety. It has not been made in a case with modified plants as process of testing can borrow millennia. In fact now there is a set of disputes and discussions so even the urgency of this theme is proved by a simple example - quantity of existing films and serials about this problem.

Genetically modified products can be toxic and dangerous for people. In 1989 the modification of L-Tryptophan, the food additive, caused death of 37 Americans and made invalids 5000 persons because of causing sufferings and potentially fatal illness of blood. Only after that event the product has been withdrawn from the use. According to special explorations, genetically modified L-Tryptophan was equivalent to previous substances which were made with the help of bacteria of natural type. However it did not correspond to these preparations on parameters of safety. If other tests had been carried out, for example, the test for assimilation by animals and people, the fact that this product was not safe would have become obvious. But such tests had not been carried out.

People have different points of view about whether the genetic modification of food is a good thing – in fact it is quite a controversial topic. Those involved in the biotechnology business insist it is safe and that genetic modification can increase yields, reduce waste and improve the flavour and keeping qualities of products. For example, soft fruits can be made firmer to prevent spoilage during transportation. People in favour of genetic modification also say that better use can be made of agricultural land as crops can potentially be modified to grow in hostile conditions, such as those of a drought; this will help in feeding the world. The later is a vital issue. The same goes for improving the nutritional value of foods. More than 800 million people still go hungry, and 82 countries (half of them in Africa) neither grow enough food, nor can afford to import it. In India alone, 85% of children under five live below the normal, acceptable state of nutrition.

 

What is genetic modification?

Unlike normal methods of reproduction, genetic modification is done in the laboratory by cutting, joining and transferring genes between totally unrelated living things. As a result, combinations of genes which would never occur naturally are produced.

Everyone has heard of Dolly the sheep and experiments in the medial field, but genetic modification is also happening in the food industry. It is possible to isolate and transfer different characteristics between unrelated species or between plants and animals. For example, the introduction of an “anti-freeze” gene from an Arctic fish into tomatoes or strawberries made them resistant to frost.

Around 40% of the world’s total crop production is lost to pests and diseases, despite the heavy use of pest-killing chemicals. Cauliflowers are no exception, and suffer damage from aphids and other insects. Scientists have looked to nature to find a solution to this problem and discovered that snowdrops are able to survive attacks from some of the most devastating pests. Snowdrops produce a substance called lectin, which affects insects by interfering with their digestive systems. The task is to transfer the gene for lectin production, and thus the property of insect resistance, into cauliflowers.

It is known that tomatoes, carrots and peppers are rich in carotenoids, which help prevent cancer ant coronary heart disease. To make things easier for us, scientists are working to produce vegetables that are genetically modified to contain increased carotenoid levels. They have already succeeded in creating tomatoes with more than three times the normal “anti-cancer” power.

Animals can also be “engineered”. When salmon were modified with the gene for cold resistance from the flounder fish, they grew 10 times as fast as normal salmon because the inserted gene had interfered with their grown harmone gene. A pig was modified with a human gene to make it grow faster and leaner. But these efforts have resulted in numerous problems and serious diseases among the experimental animals.

Many, if not all Southern countries, posses the indigenous genetic resources – requiring no further genetic modification – that can guarantee a sustainable food supply. For instance, in a single village of northeast India, 70 varieties of rice are grown… Farmers repeatedly used and enchanted some varieties that were resistant to disease, drought and flood, some that tasted nice, some that were coloured and useful for ritual purposes and some that were highly productive. It seems obvious that there is no need for genetically modified crops. On the contrary, they will undermine food security and biodiversity. The best thing is to sustain existing indigenous agricultural diversity as the basis of a secure and nutritious food base for all.

 

Genetic modification can be dangerous and unpredictable

But on the other hand, many professional independent observers believe genetic engineering is unpredictable and dangerous. They think that the risks are not worth taking, especially since they are not safe. This science is too new to guarantee that problems will not occur in the future. When moved from one species to another, genes can create new unknown dangers. Small changes could have big impacts. Once released into the natural environment, genetically modified plants interbreed with those in the wild. The spread of modified genes from one organism to another in the wild is technically termed “a gene flow”. It has already led to the creation of  new strains of “super weeds” that are resistant to herbicides. Perhaps most worrying of all, there is no way of recalling a genetic modification. Once released into the environment, genetic pollution cannot be cleaned up; it will survive so long as there is life on Earth. The environment will be irreversibly altered. Natural plants and animals could be driven out.

A company called Pioneer Hi-Bred developed a variety of genetically modified soya spliced with a Brazil nut gene to increase its protein content. When it was discovered that individuals allergic to Brazil nuts also reacted to the modified soya, the company had to withdraw the product.

In a 1994 field test, natural potatoes were planted at a distance of up to 1,100 metres from a batch of genetically modified potatoes. When seeds from the unmodified potatoes were later collected, it was found that 72% of the natural plants grown near the modified batch had absorbed the modified gene, and 35% of those grown further away had also done so. In another study in the same year, scientists at the Scottish Crop Research Institute found that pollen from genetically modified rapeseed had fertilized plants up to 2.5 kilometers away.

The company Ciba Geigy PLC recently introduced genetically modified maize, which is altered to be resistant to a herbicide and contains a marker gene for resistance to the widely used antibiotic ampicillin. Microorganisms in the stomach could absorb the gene for resistance to the antibiotic and spread into the environment, leaving a vita medical  resource useless. The European Parliament expresses fear that consumption of the maize might weaken the effect of some antibiotic medicines in the human body.  And the finite risk could be absolutely catastrophic if it occurred.

A soil bacterium was modified to break down a particular herbicide. It did so, but the unexpected end result was a substance highly toxic to vital soil fungi, which were destroyed.

Now just twenty-odd years since this was discovered, experiments have produced genetically modified types of most major food crops and these have recently started to be given legal approval despite opposition from thousands of organizations who have high lighted the dangers, and without informed public debate. A report by 100 US scientists suggested that genetically modified organisms could cause “… irreversible, devastating damage to the technology”. British scientists have also spoken out – Dr. Michael Antoniou, a senior molecular biologist who has experience in conducting  genetic engineering experiments in the laboratory said: “This is an imperfect technology with inherent dangers”.  The Prince of Wales also speaks out about genetic foods. He urges scientists to stop playing God by tinkering with food. He says there is no way of knowing the long-term consequences of producing and eating genetically modified crops, and points to the “man-made” BSE1 disaster an example of the dangers of the quest for cheap food. The Prince says that genetic engineering “takes mankind into realms that belong to ‘God and to God alone’, “and raises ethical and practical considerations. The author of a report on genetic engineering from Brussels, Doug Parr, says, “It’s like the genie in bottle: once it’s out, you cannot put it back. Already there are too many cases of things going wrong.”

 

The problems of labeling genetically modified food

Do not be surprised if you have not heard much about genetically modified foods, because neither the chemical companies who produce them nor the governments are exactly running public information campaigns about them. Agricultural biotechnology is big business, and science has been absorbed  into industry to an unprecedented extent. Practically all established molecular geneticists have some industrial ties, thus limiting  what they can do research on particularly  with regard to safely. The transnational companies will soon be in a position to dictate the future of the food industry. And they know just how they want our food to be produced – in ways that will maximize their own profits. That means using the gene technology which they have patented and can control, despite the risk of irreversible global consequences for the rest of us.

Some of the food companies are refusing to segregate crops which contain modified genes from those which do not. This makes it impossible to have a proper labeling scheme, which would allow people to make up their minds about weather or not they should eat the products of gene technology. Only a few genetically modified products are on sale in the supermarkets of Great Britain at the moment. Unfortunately, the situation is changing because of the soya bean. Soya beans are grown mainly in North America and find their way into 60% of all processed foods. For example they are in bread, biscuits, baby foods, chocolate, ice cream and many vegetarian products. The inclusion of soya makes it more than likely that people in Britain are already eating modified soya, whether they like it or not. Monsanto , a giant chemical company, modified a soya bean with genetic material from a virus and a petunia linked to a bacterial gene, which has made the soya plant resistant to a weed-killer called Roundup, which is also manufactured by Monsanto. Companies like Monsanto do not spend millions on a new soya bean because it will feed the poor and starving. They believe it will make their shareholders fabulously wealthy. Farmers have to sign restrictive contracts promising to use Monsanto’s weed-killers and not grow their own seed. In the race to spread their modified crops all over the world, little attention is being paid to the dangers. Perhaps it is the danger to human health that it most worrying. As our food becomes more and more refined and synthetic, its nutritional value falls, and unexpected health effects are continually surfacing. Some of these do not appear for years, even decades, after the food was eaten. At the same time, unchanged, unprocessed, natural food may actually become more expensive and harder to find. Even when toxins aren’t produced, allergies can be triggered unexpectedly.

Taking into account that genetic engineering can introduce unknown dangerous properties in products; each genetically modified product should be subjected to the inspection (which should be capable to reveal the widest spectrum of possible dangers).

 

 

 

Cloning

A huge quantity of disputes and discussions concerning cloning are carried out nowadays. It is well known that the fear of new and unknown things is a peculiar feature of people. People have already forgotten that a few dozens of years ago the world was shocked by the discussion about an opportunity of cloning of a human being. This opportunity has appeared after successful cloning of frogs.

Several years ago, the humankind was shocked by reports in mass media about Dolly the Scottish sheep, which was represented as its founders assert, an exact copy of its genetic mother. American bull Jefferson and the bull, deduced by the French biologists appeared later. The prospect of work on cloning of a human being is publicly discussed.

The latest months enabled experts to comprehend soberly the situation, to estimate some methodical and technological difficulties lying in the field of mammal cloning. Cloning of a human being can create unsuccessful copies, ugly creatures, but all mankind will bear the responsibility for his or her ugliness.

 

Problems facing to cloning

Cloning of bodies and fabrics is the problem number one in the field of transplantology, traumatology and in other areas of medicine and biology. Cloned bodies become a kind of rescue for people who have got in automobile failures or any other accidents or for people who need radical help because of diseases caused by age.

The most evident effect of cloning is that childless people will be able to have their own children. Today millions married couples all over the world suffer because they are doomed to remain without descendants.

Cloning will help people who suffer genetic diseases.

And still. Fans of exotic things will always exist among humans. They bequeath to send their ashes on a rocket aside the Sun. They spend thousands of dollars for saving their bodies in cryogenic chambers till that time when medicine will manage to return them into a normal condition and to relieve them from illnesses which are incurable today. Moreover, there also will be fans of exotic things in the field of cloning. Somebody will wish to see his or her own copy during his or her lives. Others wish to revive during another historical epoch: 50 - 100 years later.

 

What is the human clone?

Actually, the clone is not simply an identical twin of some other person and they differ in periods of time. However, science-fiction novels and films have created an impression as if human clones are thoughtless zombies, monsters like Frankenstein, etc. But it is complete nonsense. Human clones will be usual human beings, perfect as you and me. They will be born by usual women after 9 months of pregnancy; they will be born and will be grown up in a family, as well as any other child. They will need 18 years to become adults, as other people do. Hence, the clone-twin will be some decades younger than the original; therefore there is no danger, that people will confuse the clone-twin to the original. Just as identical twins, a clone and his donor of DNA will have various fingerprints. The clone will not inherit anything from memoirs of the original individual. Due to all these distinctions, the clone is not an x-copy or the double of his donor, but a younger identical twin. Human clones will have the same legal rights and duties, as any other person does. Clones will be human beings in the fullest sense.

It is necessary to emphasize, that the cloning of human beings should be carried out on an individual voluntary basis only. The alive person, should give his or her legal permission. As well as the woman who will bear a clone-twin and then grow this child, should take her own decisions. The woman is required for cloning to bear the child. So, there is no danger that scientists-villains will create thousands of clones in confidential laboratories. Cloning will be done only after requests and with participation of usual people.

What can we expect from human clones? The answer can be found from exploration of identical twins. The clone repeats the original individual on appearance completely and has the same growth and a constitution. For well-known supermodels and movie stars, it can be the most important quality.

 More than 5 billion people exist on this planet. Obviously, cloning of people will carry out in very modest scales because of prospective cost of procedure. More than the majority of women will not want to be mothers of clones-twins. Many years will pass before the total of clones will reach even 1 million people all over the world. On percentage parity, it would make a microscopic part from the general population and would not influence to genetic variety of people. If in some long-term future cloning becomes widely widespread some restrictions on such activity will can be justified. If the clone of each person on a planet is created, a genetic variety will not decrease, there still will be 5 billion genetically various individuals.

 

It can lead to creation of monsters or ugly creatures

Cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. During cloning DNA is copied. Then one more person appears an exact twin of an existing individual.  Therefore, it is not monster or ugly creature. Genetic engineering would mean modification of human DNA. Therefore, there can appear another person, who will not look like to existing. Genetic engineering has big positive potential. It is valid very much and should be carried out only with the greatest care and under supervision. Cloning is safe and banal in comparison with genetic engineering. If you are afraid of cloning genetic engineering should horrify you.

 

Do we need 200 clones of Sophie Loren or Sindi Crawford?

If we speak about cloning of an alive person, it is extremely improbable, that he will agree to creation of 200 clones. The person will approve creation no more than 1 or two clones. In addition, we shall recollect, that clones of the person cannot be made in laboratory in big quantity. Each of them should be mature by a woman, as well as any other child. How do critics of cloning represent that it is possible to persuade 200 women to bear these identical babies? If we really worry, that it is possible, the society can simply forbid creation more than two clones of one person.

If we speak about cloning someone, who has already died, the question of restriction of quantity of clones-twins will become a reasonable theme for reflections and debates. Moreover, we will have a lot of time for these debates.

 

Cloning of died people

There is the little-known fact about doctor Vilmut’s procedure of cloning. It is said to be made with frozen cells. It means that there is no necessity for cloning, that donor of DNA must be alive. If the sample of a fabric of the person is frozen properly, the person could be cloned through long time after his death. In case of people, which have already died also whose fabrics was not frozen, cloning becomes more complex, and today's technology does not allow making it. However, for the biologist it would be very courageous to declare, that this procedure is impossible.

All fabrics of people contain DNA and can potentially be a source for cloning. The list of fabrics includes human hair, bones and teeth. Unfortunately, DNA starts to decay and destroy segments of genetic code some weeks after death. After 60 million years only short fragments DNA of dinosaurs were kept. Therefore, chances of realization of guiro-park are insignificant. However, there are good chances of restoration of sequence DNA from samples of a human fabric. Imagine a genetic code as a book which paragraphs or pages were left in the casual image. If we have only one copy of the book, the full text cannot be restored. Fortunately, we have more, than one copy. There can be thousands of cells in a bone or a sample of a fabric. Each of them has its own copy of DNA code. It is possible to restore an initial genetic code by combining the information from many cells. One more encouraging factor is that only small percent from three billions symbols of a genetic code of a person is responsible for individual distinctions. For example, genetic codes of monkey and people coincide on 99%. It means that it is necessary to restore less than 1% of a code, i.e. only that part which defines individual distinctions between people. Certainly, all this tasks are essentially feasible.