Genetically modified plants: expert opinion
Scientist: both the media and politicians are to blame for the "mythologization" of GMOs
Biotechnologist Konstantin Shestibratov from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences spoke about why people are terrified of GMOs, how the ban of GMOs will affect science, how China is fighting GMOs and multinational companies and shared his thoughts on how GMOs interact with nature.
Konstantin Shestibratov and a number of other biotechnologists from the IBH RAS have been working for a long time to create new transgenic tree species that are more interesting from an industrial point of view or resistant to pests, and studied their impact on the Earth's ecosystems.
He spoke at the conference "Science of the Future" about the results of these experiments and shared with RIA Novosti his thoughts about how the recently adopted ban on the import and cultivation of GMOs will affect the work of scientists.
– Konstantin, how could you explain why the population reacts extremely panic-stricken to the appearance of GMOs and assigns mythical and magical properties to transgenic products?
– The first is, of course, the media – they form opinions, and they do it at the suggestion of politicians and the economy. In this case, both politicians give an order, and the economy gives an order.
The second is fertile soil. Look at the history, remember what happened when coffee, the "devil's drink", the same potato, which at first grew only in flower beds as an ornamental plant, and only then began to be cultivated, with scandals and riots, in the fields, penetrated into our lives. Our people will come up with everything themselves, and they will do everything themselves with the submission of the media and with the appropriate order of the economy.
– Recently, the government has adopted a number of regulations restricting or prohibiting the use of GMOs. How do such prohibitions affect the development of genetics and molecular biology in the long term?
– In the long term, these changes, of course, will be negative. Yes, this law, or rather the amendments to the 1996 law, left us the opportunity to do science, but there is a problem here. Any research that is being conducted in Russia today is necessary for practice, that is, they must have some kind of applied output.
If we take the projects of the Ministry of Education and Science, then all their research is applied – they all have to end with a certain technology, a certain method or apparatus that has a specific application. All projects should have an industrial partner, ours or even a foreign one, who will introduce it into production and implement its results in practice.
That is, look – if we submit a project for GMOs, we will not succeed, since we simply will not find such a partner. Take our current research – we are creating methods for assessing the properties of GMOs, and our actual customer would be the state, which would use our experience to evaluate the properties of imported imported products containing or being GMOs.
The new amendments to the law simply took away the need for this. GMOs cannot be grown here, which deprives such applications of any meaning. If we do something purely for scientific purposes, we only get budget funding from the FANO or grants from the RNF, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, but all these are pennies.
– And what exactly is the problem with GMOs in Russia, why has it come to the fore only now?
– In my opinion, this situation is mostly due to politics, but there is also a small moment of awareness of reality. We really do not have a security system and clear control that would allow us to have confidence that we will not have a bacchanal of low-quality transgenic seeds and other questionable products.
In this regard, I perfectly understand and agree with the government that there is, in fact, no own seed production in Russia. Today, some seeds are emerging in our country – anti-sanctions are working in this regard, and there is a boom in the industry. A similar situation with the variety creation – all the achievements of the Soviet era and technology have been lost, and now everything actually has to be created anew.
Against this background, naturally, empty space will quickly be occupied by monopolies, and the government's decision to temporarily ban the cultivation of GMOs in this regard is to some extent correct in the short term. Therefore, the moratorium of 2014, without taking into account its political part, was absolutely clear.
On the other hand, the question arises – and then what? The moratorium was not extended, but the federal law was changed, and twice, first allowing, and then prohibiting the cultivation of GMOs. The situation has become completely incomprehensible, and our industry now risks finding itself in a situation in which genetics and cybernetics were in the Soviet Union.
In general, it should be taken into account where the anti-GMO sentiment in the world as a whole comes from. They are mainly generated by Europe in order to resist America, which, due to the mass replication and introduction of GMOs, captures all markets and squeezes out local European producers. Therefore, many countries make similar decisions to ban GMOs. For example, Scandinavia also lives without GMOs. This is the easiest way to deal with multinational companies.
Interestingly, as in some European countries, our new laws do not allow the cultivation of GMOs or the import of seeds, but does not prevent the import and registration of GMO products. It turns out that we can eat cookies made from GMO cereals, but we can't grow them at home.
– What is the meaning of this approach?
– In order to register such a product, the importing company will have to go through seven circles of hell. In other words, the possibility of entering the market formally exists, but the sale of the product will become impractical and unprofitable.
China is an example of this. Beijing has ratified the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, joined the international legislation on GMOs. But the Chinese have adapted it so that the committee that issues a permit for the sale of GMO products must receive from the seller samples of seeds of those plants from which his goods were made.
Chinese scientists have been "studying" them for a long time for their danger to human health and the environment, and then give a negative answer. At this time, Chinese geneticists take these seeds, sow them, study the publications of their creators and they "suddenly" have their own kind of GMOs. I think this is a right, wonderful policy. It seems that China follows the laws of the international community and protects its national interests. Why couldn't we introduce such a practice?
– Do you think it is possible to extend the ban on the use of transgenic plants to other types of organisms, for example, insulin-producing bacteria or antibiotics?
– Yes, indeed, we have such a fear. In 2013, we participated in the development of a project with the State Research Institute of Genetics, which is engaged in the production of strains of industrial microorganisms that produce citric acid, lysine, amino acids used in the production of biofuels. In these cases, it is virtually impossible to clearly qualify whether such organisms are GMOs or not.
There are methods of creating such bacteria and fungi, which are accompanied by the introduction of foreign DNA, for example, by crossing with other microorganisms, but genetic modification, in fact, it is not. Thank God, we have secured this part of our work as much as possible: the world practice is that most of these microbes are classified as biotechnological organisms, and do not belong to genetically engineered living beings.
Therefore, we convinced the Ministry of Education and Science and other government agencies to develop a special document, the so-called All-Russian Classifier of Transformational Events, according to which it is possible to classify whether a particular organism is a GMO or not.
– Please tell us about the research that you and your colleagues at the institute are conducting, and what you plan to do in the future, despite all these difficulties
– Today, the Institute of Biorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences is one of only three organizations in Russia where research on transgenic plants is carried out. This includes, in addition to IBH, the Bioengineering Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology.
Our institute has been a leader in the development of transgenic varieties of trees and wheat, which have been created at IBH since the 1990s. We continue to conduct these studies, but there is no understanding – and then what? We have patented forms and technologies, but we stopped at semi-natural research.
In the early 2000s, when there was still an Interdepartmental Commission on Genetic Engineering, then the practice of field testing was working. Some crops, including wheat, pear, apple and strawberry, went through this stage, and then this commission was abolished, and now we simply do not know with whom we can coordinate these tests.
That is: we do not have the opportunity to conduct the last stage of research, which is actually decisive and it will answer the questions – is GMO safe, can it be used and why. As a result, we only have the opportunity to conduct experiments in greenhouses and in closed systems, and something more will already be a violation of the law. Previously, we just had to notify the commission that we had conducted such experiments.
Well, even if we have no right to conduct such experiments, but why can't we sell our GMOs somewhere abroad, for example, to the same China?
– Let's get back to pure science: recently, your American colleagues published the results of a large-scale study on the impact of GM crops on the environment, the results of which turned out to be ambiguous. Why do you think nature reacted differently to planting GMOs protected from insects and pesticides?
– To answer the question, is it good or evil, is it good or bad to grow GMOs, you need to consider each case separately. It is necessary to know the specific features of a particular culture with which we are dealing. The consequences of such modifications often do not end with resistance to herbicides or insects, and other accompanying changes may often occur.
For example, the properties of the cuticle on the surface of the leaves, the thickness of the cell walls, biomass may change – by the way, there is an American patent where the modification of plants for resistance to herbicides is accompanied by increased productivity. This is due to the fact that resistance to the action of herbicides strongly depends on the metabolism of nitrogen in plant cells, and a change in this part of the metabolism leads to a lot of other effects.
Take, for example, GMO soy, resistant to herbicides. Naturally, the planting of such soybeans is actively watered with herbicides, the same glyphosate or its analogues. Wild vegetation is being killed, the habitat is changing, and the fauna is changing dramatically, starting with birds, insects and ending with earthworms. All this then affects how the ecosystem lives, and this may explain why different varieties of GMOs affect nature in different ways.
In this case, the differences may be explained by how crops resistant to pesticides and insects are grown. If, for example, you plant Bt potatoes, you have to plant wild potatoes next to it so that the Colorado potato beetle does not eat your transgenic plantings.
This potato serves as a food base, bait for the beetle: he has a choice – tasteless Bt potatoes, which causes digestive disorders, and delicious, which is good. What he chooses is clear. If the beetles have nothing to eat, they will still eat these tasteless potatoes, and, eventually, evolution will lead to the emergence of stable forms of beetles.
The problem with herbicides is that they, including glyphosate, decompose slowly and accumulate in the soil, and it is advisable not to use such herbicides. Therefore, it would be better if herbicides acted "purely" – they killed weeds and decomposed without leaving traces.
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29.09.2016