Prepare a short scientific summary describing the risks and benefits of transgen
ID: 22365 • Letter: P
Question
Prepare a short scientific summary describing the risks and benefits of transgenic organisms in ONE of two areas: agriculture or medicine.Imagine that you are a biologist working for the Canadian government. You have been asked by your manager to prepare a short scientific summary describing the risks and benefits of transgenic organisms in ONE of two areas: agriculture or medicine.
Please write a 500-700 word scientific assessment report, summarizing at least two risks and two benefits of transgenic organisms to Canadians in EITHER agriculture or medical applications. Use the style of scientific assessment report.
In your report, sate whether you are for or against recommending the use of transgenic organisms in Canada based on the evidence you provide. Make sure that you include at least 3 references in your report, using proper citation format.
Explanation / Answer
Assessing Benefits and Risks of Genetically Modified Organisms The term "Genetically Modified Organism" or GMO has been applied to plants and animals in which techniques of recombinant DNA have been used to introduce, remove, or modify specific parts of the genome of an organism. The resulting organism may now stably express a novel protein, a protein with novel properties, or carry a change in the regulation of some of its genes. Usually, such a change is designed to improve the ability of the organism to grow, for instance by resisting pests or using nutrients more efficiently, or to improve the usefulness of the organism to us, for instance by improving its nutritive value, by using it to manufacture pharmaceutically important molecules, or employing it to carry out environmentally important processes such as digesting environmental toxins. Public discussion of the risks of Genetically Modified Organisms turn on a number of different and not always related issues. The discussion document below is meant to serve as an outline of the most important scientific points for many of these issues and to provide references to more detailed discussions of the subject. This document explicitly does not address the social and economic impact of the use and commercialization of GMOs. Some general issues to consider: 1. A new technique such as genetic engineering may allow novel products to be produced, but there is no scientific basis for the technique used to initially generate the plants or animals to be a source for concern. Therefore, it will be necessary to consider products on a "case-by-case" basis. In some cases, a GMO may not be different in any significant way from a classically bred organism; in most cases, the differences from a parent organism will be more defined and better understood than in a classic breeding experiment. 2. In a given case, is the concern about the organism's interactions with the environment while it is growing, or about the interaction of a product with the user? Both are possible, but if only one is of concern in a given case, the solutions are rather different. Particularly in the latter case, the levels of the novel material should be relevant to determining risk. As detection methods for GMOs per se become more and more sensitive, it becomes possible to detect very small quantities of a GMO. The distinction between a small contamination with an organism able to propagate itself and a small contamination by a protein or metabolic product, in a form no longer able to propagate itself, should be kept in mind. The primary focus of concern lies with invasive, self-propagating organisms. 3. Some of the concerns about GMOs reflect general concerns about loss of genetic diversity and dependence on large companies for seeds and other materials. These are scientifically and socially valid concerns that are worthy of discussion, but are not the subject of this document. From the viewpoint of geneticists, reduction in genetic diversity of crop plants, for whatever reason, can increase the risk of invasion by a single virulent pathogen. Solutions to the problem of loss of genetic diversity, which are not unique to GMOs, are quite distinct from the possible solutions for organisms believed to pose a direct threat to us or to the environment. There is nothing about GMOs, per se, that limits the genetic diversity of food crops, and it is possible that heirloom strains could be revived with this technology. 4. Have both risk and benefit been considered in evaluating concerns? It is never possible to totally eliminate the unknown complication, even when using plants and animals that arise naturally and have been in use for many years. A sense of proportion needs to be maintained in evaluating the nature of the expected benefit and the nature of the possible problems.