Institute of Plant Biotechnology For Developing Countries

Emeritiforum Leuven – January 28, 2010

GMO’s We hebben ze broodnodig.

Prof. Em. Marc Van Montagu

Institute of Plant Biotechnology

For Developing Countries

Prof. Em. Marc Van MontaguChairman, IPBO

Websites: http://www.ipbo.ugent.behttp://www.psb.ugent.behttp://www.efb-central.orghttp://www.pubresreg.org

E-mail : [email protected]

GMO’ - We hebben ze broodnodig.

Plants for Life

Emeritiforum Leuven – 28 January 2010

Plants for Life


Population growth


1945 2 billion

1998 6 billion

2008 6.7 billion

Urban Population exceeds rural population

2050 9-10 billion


Thomas Malthus:(13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834)

The rise in human


population will outrun the growth in food supplies.


The Millenium Development Goals

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education

• Promote gender equality & empower women

• Reduce child mortality


• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diesases

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Develop a global partnership for development

www.UN.org


Challenge

�We need GM agriculture to:

�Increase agricultural productivity

�Provide income for the rural poor

In 2015 the Millennium Goals will not be met if we stay

with business as usual


�Provide income for the rural poor

�Not extend the amount of arable land used

�We need substantial investment in international agriculture

�We need to assure that emerging and developing countries can

create SMEs and a seed industry to bring GM crops to the market


Major arguments against GM crops

• It is unnatural• Nobody needs it• It is bad for health and environment


• It is a privilege of the multinational agrochemical companies

Answer: NO, we cannot afford not to useGM crops


25 thousand years of genetically

modified plants

• Selection

• Crossing


• Crossing

• Genomic Fusion

• Mutagenesis

• Cloning

The fertile crescent


Lessons from Molecular Evolution

• The living world is one large gene-pool of functional and pseudogenes

• This gene-pool is permanently evolving, this is


permanently evolving, this is the base of evolution

• Nature is one big genetic laboratory

• It is very misleading to talk about human gene, pig gene, rat gene etc.


THE GREEN REVOLUTION



Resources for food production: arable land

availability

0.350.4

0.45

hect

ares

per

cap

ita

40% of arable land is seriously

degraded or infertile:

• 75% of land in Central America;

• 20% of land in Africa;


00.050.1

0.150.2

0.250.3

0.35

1961 1997 2050

hect

ares

per

cap

ita • 20% of land in Africa;

• 11% of land in Asia

Source: UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment


Biotech crop history


1904, Agrobacterium

tumefaciens1974, Ti

Plasmid, Gent

1990’s

genomics

1996

Commercial

launch


PGS: Insect resistance




Plants for Knowledge


Success of Plant BiotechnologyRelies on efficient interaction between

fundamental, strategic and applied research

Making the products our planet needs depends on:


InnovativeBiotechnology

The Best ofPlant Breeding Excel

AgronomicPractices


Systems Biology: compressing history

•Metagenomics•Functional genomics•Transcriptomics•Proteomics


•Metabolomics

Explosion of new information

Creation of new knowledge

Generation of new products

POLITICAL, FINANCIAL,PRIVATE SECTORSUPPORT

PUBLICSECTORVISION


BGI (formerly known as the Beijing Genomics Institute) has purchased 128 Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencing system, which promises to generate up to 200 gigabases of sequence data per run.

China's BGI plans to sequence the genomes of 1,000 important plant


genomes of 1,000 important plant and animal reference species over the next two years as part of a new project that will solicit proposals from the scientific community.

Acquisition Puts Beijing Genomics Institute on Path to Become World’s

Largest Sequencing Facility



China to Develop Third-Generation Genome Sequencing Instrument


The search for yield improvement



Phenomics

The ‘phenotyping bottleneck’

has limited our ability to

capitalise on plant functional

genomics and modern


Chlorophyll fluorescence,

and photosystem II activity

Science, August 8, 2009

genomics and modern

breeding technologies


The Application Gap

Molecular Biologists should interact with:• Departments of agronomy & forestry;• Departments of tropical agriculture;• Seed companies; Explosion of new information


• Seed companies;• Curators of seed banks;• Agricultural economists• Nutritionists and food scientists;• Ecologists.

Explosion of new information

Creation of new knowledge

Generation of new products


Drought & salinity will be the most significant constraints on productivity

Existing practicesare unsustainable

Scientific solutions:

Crop improvement:

• GM crops


• MAS breeding

Crop choices:

- Sorghum

- Lathyrus

- Pearl Millet

Solutions to ensurefuture productivity must be designed tomeet an increasingly harsh environment


Alternative crops:

Lathyrus sativus Chickpea


Cereals

Drought in Ethiopia


Phytophthora Resistant Potatoes

• Breeding of resistant cultivars (introgression of 2 resistance genes took 35 years)


• 17 resistance genes have been cloned

• GM potatoes expressing resistance genes show excellent disease tolerance in field trials.


Virus resistant papaya in Hawaii

Susceptible Resistant ResistantSusceptible




The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for the development of a global map of banan a

and plantain diseases


The emerging bio-economy is built on green and white biotechnology

Green biotechnology White biotechnology



Short rotation plantations for fuel and fibre

• Wood producing plants e.g. poplar• CO2 captation in cell walls





Alternative solution:Nanoparticle vaccine

Vaccines for Medicine and Husbandry

vaccine production against rapidly mutating virus is slow and costly


production of high levels of specially designed “virus-like” nanoparticles in tobacco plantsAdvantages: less costly, time saving, easier purification, safer….

Charles Arntzen , 238th ACS 92009


Major public concernsSafety Issues

• Human and Animal Health

� No adverse effect reported with the approved GM-crops


GM-crops

• Environmental

� Already a long list of beneficial effects

� No alarming scenario was confirmed

� Long term ecological effects can be lower than those of traditional agriculture


Price Tag for Introducing GM Plants

Overregulation and unnecessary testing make that

• no Small Medium Enterprise


• no Small Medium Enterprise

• no Third World country

can afford to introduce a GM crop.

Only multinationals can proceed.


21st Century Plants will be GM-Plants


be GM-Plants



In a better Environment

Documents

Institute of Plant Biotechnology For Developing Countries