Genetic barrier to engineering corn discovered
M. Massler / UPI 18oct00

A Wisconsin plant geneticist says he's discovered the answer to American's ongoing "taco problem" — finding unwanted bioengineered corn in the food supply.

Working with a wild relative of corn called teosinte, Jerry Kermicle, a retired professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found a set of genes that resist the uptake of foreign genetic material. Included would be genes from genetically modified corn, recently claimed as cropping up in tacos.

Kermicle told United Press International those wild genes could serve as a "molecular barrier" to genetically transfer from one farmer's engineered crop to his neighbor's non-engineered crop, for example.

An important point, naturally, would be transferring the wild genes into hybrid corn grown in the United States, using traditional breeding methods rather than genetic engineering, he said.

Kermicle has licensed the new technology to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, the university's non-profit technology transfer arm, which told UPI that seed companies are showing great interest in adopting it.

"We do not oppose GMOs (genetically modified organisms)," WARF official and agronomist Steven Gerrish said. "But we recognize that the public is not ready for them yet. This is a way to provide some insurance that corn the public eats now will not be genetically modified until it understands that the technology can be used for good purposes, such as adding nutritional value to grains used in developing nations."

Teosinte has grown wild near edible corn in Mexico for thousands of years, but does not grow naturally in the United States. Both are grasses with similar genetic makeup, which gave Kermicle the idea of investigating whether the barrier trait of teosinte could be transferred to modern hybrid corn.

Corn of all varieties is what Kermicle calls "natural traffickers in genes" — meaning cross-fertilization between strains occurs as pollen is carried by bees or blown by the wind between corn fields.

The natural transfer means modern hybrid or even organic corn can accidentally cross with genetically engineered corn, rendering the traditional corn unuseable for export to countries where it is banned, or where consumers won't buy it.

"This technology can potentially solve the problem of contamination of regular hybrid corn and organic hybrid corn by any genetically modified organism during the growing season," said Gerrish. "Corn grown with the teosinte genes could also allow a farmer to grow both types of corn crops and maintain a market-segregated product."

Currently, nearly 23 percent of US-grown corn is exported to other nations, with 8 percent used for sweeteners, 2.6 percent for starch, 5 percent to produce alcohol, and 1.2 percent for food products for human consumption. A little over 50 percent is used for animal feed.

All the corn used for export, human and animal consumption could be grown using the barrier genes, given the growing interest in the United States and abroad for corn certified as non-GMOs, said Gerrish. He added that interest in corn grown GMO-free is even greater abroad, in Japan, Europe, Australia and New Zealand in particular.

Gerrish expects that corn seed incorporating the barrier genes will be commercially available by 2002 or 2003 at the latest. While WARF is conducting negotiations with numerous large seed companies, Gerrish said, he would name none of them "at this point."

In addition, the licensing agreements companies make with WARF will include a provision that GMO technology is kept out of corn varieties with the teosinte barrier.

"Patenting and licensing the technology provides some protection for it to be used properly," said Gerrish.

Environmental Defense Fund scientist Rebecca Goldburg commented that she hoped the technology, if proven to work, will not be used by seed companies to sell more seeds to developing nations. Discouraging seed saving has been an issue in the past among large companies and some nations, said New York-based Goldburg.

"With most people in the U.S. concerned about tacos and engineered grain getting into them, we hope that the new technology will be used to allay the public's fears that the corn it eats will not be genetically engineered until it has more confidence in genetic engineering," said Gerrish.