Designer foods sprout hope
Mark Lowey, Calgary Herald
Friday 5 March 1999
The tiny seeds that Mike
Chappell cradles in a spoon
may soon help people
better digest their food or
prevent blood clotting after
surgery.
They look like ordinary
canola seeds -- Alberta's
bright yellow crop that
makes cooking oil and
margarine. Except these
seeds never existed in the
natural world. They were
created in the laboratory by
SemBioSys Genetics Inc., a Calgary pioneer in the genetic engineering of
oilseed plants like canola, corn, flax, soybean and sunflower.
The goal is to produce a variety of proteins from the seeds, to make more
nutritious foods, more effective medications and more appealing cosmetics.
"We are genetically altering plants to produce products they don't normally
produce," said Chappell, a chemical engineer at SemBioSys's pilot plant in
northeast Calgary.
The five-year-old company, which has attracted a $17-million investment
from agro-sciences giant DowElanco, is on the threshold of commercial
manufacture, said Maurice Moloney, chief scientific officer for SemBioSys
and chair of plant biotechnology at the University of Calgary.
"We hope to be supplying things to people in the not-too-distant future."
But biotechnology comes under scrutiny today at the country's first citizens'
conference on food biotechnology.
"Designer Genes at the Dinner Table," a three-day conference at the
University of Calgary, brings together not only industry experts and
government regulators, but some of biotech's fiercest critics.
For the first time, a 15-member citizens' panel selected from 350 applicants
from across Western Canada will "cross-examine" the experts, said
conference director Edna Einsiedel, a U of C professor of communications
studies.
The panel will produce a written report by Sunday morning. It will be sent to
federal and provincial ministers whose departments are responsible for
regulating food biotechnology.
Calgary mother Carole Parks, a member of the panel, said the public "not
only pays the bills through their taxes for the development of some of this
science, but also are the consumers."
Biotechnology "is moving quickly, perhaps too quickly for comfort
sometimes," said Parks, an administrative assistant in a medical genetics
laboratory.
Canola is the biggest genetically modified product that Canada exports and
consumes, Einsiedel said.
The Monsanto company's new potato, genetically altered to make it
resistant to the destructive Colorado potato beetle, is already in stores in
Eastern Canada and will soon head west.
In Canada and the U.S., farmers now grow canola, soybean, corn and
cotton that are genetically resistant to a variety of herbicides and insect
pests.
Biotech products designed for the dinner table, however, are giving some
people "indigestion."
Health Canada recently decided to not approve for use a genetically
engineered hormone that, when fed to dairy cattle, boosts milk production
but was blamed for causing infected udders. The hormone is allowed in the
U.S.
But in the United Kingdom, the citizenry recently rejected the notion of
consuming genetically altered foods.
Andrew Baum, president and chief executive officer of SemBioSys, believes
opponents either don't understand or ignore the science underlying
biotechnology.
"I believe in the technology and the value that we're creating" through
producing healthier foods and drugs that are easier to take, Baum said.
SemBioSys grows its genetically modified canola in British Columbia --
hundreds of kilometres away Alberta crops so there is little chance for
cross-pollination.
"It's better to start out and just be very strict," explained bioscientist
Moloney. "That gives us some time as well to do several years of field
testing, to see if anything untoward crops up."
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