Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

Last week, the USDA published a series ofquestionsseeking input to establish a National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, as mandated by amendments to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 that went into effect in July 2016.

TheNational Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard Actrequires the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture to establish disclosure standards for bioengineered food. The Act preempts state-based labeling laws for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), such as those adopted inVermontlast year.

The USDA is considering public input on the disclosure standards untilJuly 17, 2017. Two key issues are under consideration. The first is whether certain genetic modifications should be treated as though they are found in nature for example, a mutation that naturally confers disease resistance in a crop. The second concerns what types of breeding techniques should be classified as conventional breeding among "conventional breeding" techniques are hybridization and the use of chemicals or radiation to introduce random genetic mutations.

These seemingly mundane questions strike at the heart of GMO controversies and implicate the use of breakthrough CRISPR gene editing technologies. Gene editing allows novel and precise genetic modifications to be introduced into crops and animals intended for human consumption. The answers to the USDA's questions are significant because the Disclosure Standard Act exempts from mandatory disclosure genetic modifications obtained without recombinant DNA (rDNA) techniques that can otherwise be found in nature.

However, CRISPR gene editing need not rely on using any foreign DNA and can introduce genetic modifications that mirror those already found in nature. Unlike rDNA and conventional breeding methods, CRISPR technologies introduce genetic changes with far greater accuracy and precision.

In 2016, the USDAdeclined to regulatetwo CRISPR crops a mushroom and a waxy corn under regulations governing traditionalGMOs. But other regulatory agencies, including the FDA and EPA, have not yet made determinations on crops or animals modified with CRISPR technology, and uncertainty looms concerning the regulatory status of this new breed ofGMOs.

Opponents ofGMOs, who commonly argue thatGMOsare harmful to human health, decried the USDA's decision not to regulate CRISPR crops and argued thatpowerful corporations had found ways to circumvent the law through technical loopholes in outdated regulations.

Yet three decades of scientific research suggest that present-dayGMOcontroversies are not grounded in scientific fact. For instance, despite frequent rumors aboutGMO-induced cancers, a scientific consensus has now formed to support the health and environmental safety of genetically modified crops for animal and human consumption. That proposition is supported by investigations of theU.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicineas well as scientific panels including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association, the European Commission, and National Academies of Science in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

In its rulemaking process, the USDA should rely upon science and facts. With regard to crops and animals with DNA altered through gene editing, rulemakers ought to distinguish among ways that CRISPR technology may be used to edit genes. For instance, CRISPR technology can be used as a DNA construct that is incorporated into the DNA of plant or animal cells, or as a preassembled RNA and protein complex.

How gene editing is carried out matters, because some methods appear to fall within the disclosure requirements while others do not. The law definesbioengineered foodas food that contains genetic material modified through in vitro rDNA techniques. Thus, under the Disclosure Standard Acts statutory constraints, CRISPR food created using DNA constructs that are incorporated into plant or animal cells would likely fall under the mandatory disclosures.

However, food derived from rDNA-free CRISPR gene editing using transient preassembled RNA and protein complexes should be excluded from the bioengineered food definition because such complexes are degraded shortly after gene editing takes place and do not insert themselves into the target organism DNA.

The nuances of ever-evolving biotechnological innovation highlight the complexity of our regulatory system and the need to modernize it. The National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard Act is just one of the latest pieces of that regulatory patchwork to emerge. Rules establishing bioengineered food disclosures should be coherent and science-based. Gene editing that uses no foreign DNA, is more precise than conventional breeding methods, and causes genetic modifications already found in nature should not be subject to onerous disclosure standards.

Paul Enrquez is a lawyer and scientist currently doing research in Structural & Molecular Biochemistry at North Carolina State University. His work focuses on the intersection of science and law and has been featured in both legal and scientific journals. He explores rising legal and regulatory issues concerning genome editing in crop production in depth and makes policy recommendations in his recently published article CRISPRGMOs.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Genetically modified food is too advanced for its out-of-date regulations - The Hill (blog)

IARPA seeks tech to ID bioengineered life forms

WHAT: A new bio-detection tech development effort to help defend against human engineered biological threats.

WHY: With advances in genetic engineering and gene editing, the intelligence community is concerned about possible threats from chimerical life forms.

The research arm of the intelligence community is hoping new bio-detection technology can be developed to help defend against human engineered biological threats.

That idea might sound a bit familiar to science fiction buffs.

It is reminiscent of the science fiction film "Blade Runner," an adaptation of Philp K. Dicks classic 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" In the story, special futuristic cops are charged with defending human civilization from the depredations of genetically engineered android super-soldiers dubbed replicants.

In a June 19 announcement, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity said it is looking for technology that can detect human engineered changes to natural biological systems.

Emerging genetic editing tools have the potential to aid in the development of new vaccines and pharmaceuticals and to create hardy strains of crops. However, in the wrong hands, these tools could also be used to warp organisms into deliberate weapons or be misused in ways that could "accidentally or deliberately" threaten national health, security or the economy, according to the solicitation.

IARPA said its Finding Engineering-Linked Indicators (FELIX) program looks to develop new tech that can spot genetically engineered changes within biological systems to spur "mitigation responses to unlawful or accidental release of organisms." IARPA said it wants to develop a suite of tools to detect a range of engineered bio-organisms from viruses, bacteria, insects, animals and plants that have been developed from natural organisms "that are either purposefully or accidentally developed and/or released with the potential to cause harm."

IARPA plans a proposers' day on July 27 before it sends out a formal solicitation for the technology.

IARPA said technologies it wants to discuss include novel methods and high throughput techniques in genomics, systems biology, bioinformatics and evolutionary biology.

The tools it's aiming to develop could find genetic signatures that haven't been accessible before with previous technologies, using data from multiple interrogation points, increasing sensitivity, improving the quality of the data and leveraging technologies that can increase throughput and reduce the complexity of sample analysis.

IARPA said it envisions FELIX development as a two-phase program. The first phase, it said, is to develop platforms and technologies that can be made general enough to detect "signatures" that would give away engineered biological systems and develop modeling and analysis of those indicators.

The second phase, IARPA said, will optimize the platform, analysis tools and technologies to detect increasingly complex and sophisticated changes in biological systems and find those engineered changes in a variety of organisms and sample types.

Click here to read the full announcement.

Posted by Mark Rockwell on Jul 05, 2017 at 12:33 PM

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IARPA seeks tech to ID bioengineered life forms - FCW.com (blog)

In the winter of 1990, George Church and Ting Wu he resplendent in his bushy beard, she wearing a skirt, which she rarely did rode their bicycles to city hall in Cambridge, Mass., to be wed. For years they kept their marriage an open secret, and that relationship would have ramifications, both positive and otherwise, for their careers: They worked together in a Harvard lab, trying to unlock the secrets of DNA.

Ben Mezrich's new book, Woolly, is about science's attempt in recent years to use genetic engineering to revive the extinct woolly mammoth. But as with his previous bestselling works of narrative nonfiction such as Bringing Down the House, the basis of the film 21, and The Accidental Billionaires, the basis of the film The Social Network Woolly dwells on close-ups before zooming out to the big picture.

Church and Wu are two of the main characters in Mezrich's taut yet detailed dramatization. Theirs is a synergistic relationship, and while it would be an overreach to call Woolly a love story at heart, the couple's dynamic is one of the essential threads of Mezrich's story. By all accounts geniuses, the two form the nucleus of a group of Harvard scientists whose revolutionary research leads them to a staggering conclusion: They must use their knowledge and abilities to manipulate the genome of Mammuthus primigenius, the hairy pachyderm that perished from the face of the earth over 3,000 years ago.

Their reasons, as Mezrich spells out, are more than academic. By pioneering the methods it would take to clone a mammoth and gestate the fetus successfully in the womb of an elephant, Church, Wu, and crew would open the door to further efforts to revive extinct species and, through the impact these reintroduced species would have on the environment, to help reverse the damages that modern civilization has had on Earth's ecosystem and climate.

The Harvard group isn't the only one working toward this end. In Russia, the father-son team of Sergey and Nikita Zimov launch Pleistocene Park, a wildlife preserve on the steppes of Siberia, where the mammoth once freely roamed and where they could possibly roam once more.

It all sounds very Jurassic Park, of course, and Mezrich doesn't hesitate to draw that parallel. The hubris of such scientific endeavors, as well as the ethical issues involved, crop up in Woolly, although it's clear the author's sympathies lie with his subjects. Anecdotes like the wedding of Church and Wu form the backbone of the book, rather than serving as ornament. Mezrich's eye for characterization is as sharp as his ability to break down scientific jargon into easily digestible chunks.

The true protagonists of Mezrich's saga, though, are the great mammoths themselves. Through his fluid use of close perspective, poetic license, and present-tense recreations of past events not to mention his occasional speculation into the future the author dramatically illustrates his tale. It's paced like a thriller, with the frustrating politics of the research industry bleeding over into the maneuverings of capitalists who see dollar signs in investing in widespread genetic engineering. Mezrich also frequently reconstructs dialogue between the plot's players, which at times feels overly contrived and distracting.

Thankfully it's not enough to inhibit the intimate look into the lives of the men and women who are humbly and at time not so humbly hoping to put the power of creation at their fingertips. With all the passion and vision of the scientists seeking to bring the mammoth back to life, Woolly reanimates history and breathes new life into the narrative of nature.

Jason Heller is a senior writer at The A.V. Club, a Hugo Award-winning editor and author of the novel Taft 2012.

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'Woolly' Breathes New Life Into A Scientific Saga - NPR

Research published in the journal Nature has analysed the DNA of 10,503 Pakistanis who were participating in a Pakistan Risk of Myocardial Infarction Study (PROMIS) and discovered 1,317 disabled or knocked-out genes.

People who are natural knockouts, that is, they were born missing one or more genes without any obvious medical problems are few and far between.

Humans inherit two copies of every gene one from the mother and one from the father.

If one copy is damaged or inactivated, then the presence of the other fully functional copy may help alleviate most problems.

However, if the parents are biologically related, then the chances of inheriting two inactivated copies are much higher.

The person with two inactivated copies may not have the functioning protein at all and will be a natural knockout for that specific gene.

The high number of human knockouts found in the country is due to the cultural tradition of cousin marriages that is prevalent here.

A search for human knockouts has also been conducted in other countries including Iceland and the United Kingdom.

In order to study what a particular gene does, scientists have traditionally made use of genetic engineering to breed mice with a mutation in that gene (as this type of experimentation is not possible with humans).

Once they have discovered what the gene does, it is possible to make new drugs that can either block a gene if it is harmful or enhance its positive functions if it turns out to be useful.

However, while such research is informative, evidence from studies in animal knockouts often does not hold for humans.

This is explained by a substantial number of failures seen in recent clinical trials that tested new drugs for the prevention of coronary heart disease.

Read more: The Tech Healthcare Revolution Pakistan Needs

Studies in human knockouts can provide data regarding whether natural inhibition of a given pathway is useful or not, says Dr. Danish Saleheen, lead author and principal investigator of the study published in Nature.

This evidence could be translated to develop new drugs, and prioritise or deprioritise existing drug programs.

Some knocked-out genes protect against disease.

Absence of the gene ALOX5 protects against stress-induced memory deficits, synaptic dysfunction and tauopathy which can help prevent Alzheimers disease or lower its progression.

The discovery of a human PCSK9 knockout who had astonishingly low levels of LDL cholesterol and up to 90 per cent less chances of getting a heart attack has resulted in the development of a new class of drugs that could prevent heart disease.

The Nature research study discovered that individuals without the gene APOC3 were protected against coronary heart disease.

The protein Apo-CIII is encoded by the APOC3 gene and inhibits hepatic uptake of fats called triglycerides.

The team was able to study a family of Pakistanis missing both copies of the APOC3 gene.

The human knockouts were given an oral fat load in the form of a milkshake.

When compared to other family members who had the gene, individuals with an absence of APOC3 didnt get a significant postprandial rise in their blood fat levels and were perfectly healthy.

This showed the human knockouts had little artery-clogging fat in their body and had a considerably lower risk of getting a heart attack.

So the research team was able to reason that ApoC-IIIblocking drugs that are currently in clinical trials could be beneficial in preventing heart disease.

The team was only able to make this discovery after identifying an entire family of natural knockouts for APOC3 in Pakistan.

They had been searching for the past four years for someone who was missing both copies of the gene but hadnt found a single person in the United States and Europe.

It was only in Pakistan that they were able to discover a family with both parents and nine children all of whom were missing the gene.

Read more: Is a permanent cure for diabetes on the cards?

This Pakistani research study is reportedly the first time where the knockouts found have been tested and their blood biomarkers like cholesterol have been studied to discover more about their health.

As part of this study, knockouts have been found that have not been seen anywhere else in the world.

This includes knockouts for NRG4, A3GALT2 and CYP2F1 among others.

In addition, the study found 734 genes where both copies were affected by predicted loss-of-function mutations (double knock-outs) which had never been described before.

This cohort of individuals provides a great opportunity for further study and more extensive phenotyping, says Dr. James Peters, Clinical Research Fellow at the British Heart Foundation.

A particular strength of this study is that individuals with a specific mutation can be contacted and brought back for further detailed measurements, he adds.

However, some geneticists caution that drugs made from this kind of genetic analysis might not be effective.

In an article, geneticist Stephen Rich from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville says that inhibiting ApoC-III late in life may not mimic being born with an APOC3 mutation, which protects for a lifetime.

The research team is now calling for a human knockout project to make one complete database for all the information coming from new genetics studies.

The project would make it possible to systematically conduct deep phenotyping studies on human knockouts and learn more about the natural deletion of those genes in humans.

In the future, the team plans on testing the genomes of 200,000 participants from Pakistan to find knockouts of approximately 8,000 genes.

Such studies provide unprecedented opportunities to understand the function of genes and provide important insights into the development of drugs, says Dr. Saleheen.

This research study was the result of an international collaboration between scientists from Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This story originally appeared on [MIT Tech Review Pakistan11 and has been reproduced with permission.*

Link:
Study finds 1317 knocked-out genes in DNA samples from Pakistanis - DAWN.com

Your body contains trillions of cells which make up the physical you. Each one of these cells has a blueprint that is completely unique to you, called yourDNA.

In order to read all that information on your DNA, we use machines that do gene sequencing. A gene is a distinct stretch of DNA that determines something about who you are. Gene sequencing is where we can go through and laboriously read every single character in your DNA and then store it in a big file.

What if we couldchange genes in order to start changing your attributes? This is now possible using a technology calledgene editing.This is where we are able to precisely snip sections of DNA from the strand and then replace them with our own snippets.

All these methods fall under the envelope of genetic engineering. Consequently, gene editing is just another form of genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering is the direct manipulation of an organisms DNA using any number of methods. GMO is the genetic modification of organisms. Its been around for a while and uses imprecise methods of genetic engineering. Gene editing is now a more precise method of genetic engineering which hopes to avoid any bad associations with GMO.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: GMO vs Gene Editing vs Genetic Engineering

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Biotechnology confusion: Differences among GMOs, gene editing and genetic engineering - Genetic Literacy Project

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) have found a way to survive drought conditions 50 percent longer by leveraging chloroplasts to initiate the conservation of water by causing plant pores or stoma to close as temperatures rise.

The plant pumps water into the leaves, which, in turn, absorb carbon dioxide. Chlorophyll, water, carbon dioxide, and other food producing substances are available inside the chloroplast, and the entire process of photosynthesis takes place in the chloroplast.

Scientists observed that chloroplasts can sense drought stress and always activate a chemical that closes the plants pores or stomata to conserve water.

This finding was revealed in the article written by lead author Dr. Wannarat Pornsiriwong and others entitled A chloroplast retrograde signal, 3-phosphoadenosine5-phosphate, acts as a secondary messenger in abscisic acid signaling in stomatal closure and germination, in the peer-reviewed journal eLife on March 21, 2017.

The research team, led by Dr. Wannarat Pornsiriwong, Dr. Gonzalo Estavillo, Dr. Kai Chan and Dr. Barry Pogson from the Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Biology, found that chloroplasts, better known for their role in photosynthesis, play a role in regulating plant response during heat stress.

Chloroplasts are actually capable of sensing drought stress and telling the leaves to shut up and prevent water from being lost during drought stress, Dr. Pogson added.

So the chloroplasts are actually helping the plants to prevent losing too much water. We know how the drought alarm actually calls for help and we know how help comes in the form of closing pores on the leaves, he stressed.

Boosting the levels of this chloroplast signal also restores tolerance in drought-sensitive plants and extended their drought survival by about 50 per cent, Dr. Chan added.

By increasing the activity of the chloroplasts or stimulating this chemical signal in another way, plants could store water for a longer period and survive despite higher temperatures.

Through this specific function of chloroplasts, plant geneticists may employ genetic modification (GM) to develop plants with more spores or crops that have roots and stems big enough to store water the way pineapple, watermelon and turnips do.

This finding is significant as climatologists have predicted more intense global warming that could reduce rice yields.

The finding would also boost efforts by biotechnologists and plant breeders to coax rice varieties to use their chloroplasts efficiently to help the plants store water and thus support a bigger volume of rice grains in a panicle.

This basic scientific research has the potential to improve farming productivity in countries that suffer from drought stress, Dr. Pogson said.

If we can even alleviate drought stress a little, it would have a significant impact on our farmers and the economy, he added.

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Scientific finding paves way for rice genetic engineering to develop efficient water storage - InterAksyon

June 27, 2017 A photograph of purple endosperm rice. Credit: Qinlong Zhu of the South China Agricultural University

Researchers in China have developed a genetic engineering approach capable of delivering many genes at once and used it to make rice endospermseed tissue that provides nutrients to the developing plant embryoproduce high levels of antioxidant-boosting pigments called anthocyanins. The resulting purple endosperm rice holds potential for decreasing the risk of certain cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other chronic disorders. The work appears June 27th in the journal Molecular Plant.

"We have developed a highly efficient, easy-to-use transgene stacking system called TransGene Stacking II that enables the assembly of a large number of genes in single vectors for plant transformation," says senior study author Yao-Guang Liu of the South China Agricultural University. "We envisage that this vector system will have many potential applications in this era of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering."

To date, genetic engineering approaches have been used to develop rice enriched in beta-carotene and folate, but not anthocyanins. Although these health-promoting compounds are naturally abundant in some black and red rice varieties, they are absent in polished rice grains because the husk, bran, and germ have been removed, leaving only the endosperm.

Previous attempts to engineer anthocyanin production in rice have failed because the underlying biosynthesis pathway is highly complex, and it has been difficult to efficiently transfer many genes into plants.

To address this challenge, Liu and his colleagues first set out to identify the genes required to engineer anthocyanin production in the rice endosperm. To do so, they analyzed sequences of anthocyanin pathway genes in different rice varieties and pinpointed the defective genes in japonica and indica subspecies that do not produce anthocyanins.

Based on this analysis, they developed a transgene stacking strategy for expressing eight anthocyanin pathway genes specifically in the endosperm of the japonica and indica rice varieties. The resulting purple endosperm rice had high anthocyanin levels and antioxidant activity in the endosperm. "This is the first demonstration of engineering such a complex metabolic pathway in plants," Liu says.

In the future, this transgene stacking vector system could be used to develop plant bioreactors for the production of many other important nutrients and medicinal ingredients. For their own part, the researchers plan to evaluate the safety of purple endosperm rice as biofortified food, and they will also try to engineer the biosynthesis of anthocyanins in other crops to produce more purple endosperm cereals.

"Our research provides a high-efficiency vector system for stacking multiple genes for synthetic biology and makes it potentially feasible for engineering complex biosynthesis pathways in the endosperm of rice and other crop plants such as maize, wheat, and barley," Liu says.

Explore further: The origin and spread of 'Emperor's rice'

More information: Molecular Plant, Zhu et al.: "Development of ''Purple Endosperm Rice'' by Engineering Anthocyanin Biosynthesis in the Endosperm with a High-Efficiency Transgene Stacking System" http://www.cell.com/molecular-plant/abstract/S1674-2052(17)30140-5 , DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2017.05.008

Journal reference: Molecular Plant

Provided by: Cell Press

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Genetic engineering tool generates antioxidant-rich purple rice - Phys.Org

What do you think of genetically modified organisms? Are they good or bad? Those are the type of simplified, and sometimes divisive, questions documentary filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy wants to challenge.

Kennedy was a unique guest speaker at the UGA Plant Centers annual symposium on May 9. Hot on the heels of completing his latest film, Food Evolution, Kennedy spoke to a crowd of plant scientists and shared how he pursued the various angles of the GMO controversyscience, politics, activism and businessonly to find that the truth is complicated.

The GMO controversy was just waving its hands, saying this is a story thats not being told correctly, said Kennedy. It deals with huge issues in our food system, from feeding the most who have the least, to corporate greed and issues of monopolies and things like that. But it didnt seem like the full story was being told.

Kennedy will be the first to admit hes not an expert on genetic modification, but hes become very informed. He hopes his film will help shed some light on the less understood sides of the GMO debate.

UGA plant biologist Jim Leebens-Mack hopes so, too. Thats why he worked with Kennedy to organize a screening of Food Evolution at Cin in addition to presenting at the symposium.

In Athens, theres a lot of concern about people not taking the scientific perspective on things like global warming, environmental sustainability and so on, said Leebens-Mack, but GMOs are one issue where science takes a backseat to fear.

Genetic modification, also known as genetic engineering (GE), has been in practice since the early 1990s, when herbicide-tolerant corn was introduced. Today, more than 90 percent of the corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the U.S. are genetically engineered, and the Genetic Literacy Project estimates that 70 percent of the foods we buy contain GM ingredients.

GM foods have become a bogeyman, says Leebens-Mack. Like the mythical monster, fears surrounding genetic modification are ill-defined. Leebens-Mack often hears that its just not natural. His perspective is different.

As an evolutionary biologist, I know that nature has been imposing genetic modifications on plants throughout their evolutionary history, he said. Scientists use genetic modification to promote traits within a plant that growers want, whether thats resistance to certain herbicides, drought, bacteria, insects or pathogens.For example, a virus-tolerant variety of Rainbow papaya has saved Hawaiis papaya industry from ruin. That is one of the many scenarios where GE plants have obvious benefits that Kennedy explores in his film.

Leebens-Mack wants the films viewers to understand that GE technology and GMOs are not inherently good or evil. Kennedy observed that the decision to grow GE crops or organic crops depends on whats right for each farmer.

For the record, the scientific consensus is that GMOs do not present any health risk to animals or humans. Of course, there are arguments that go beyond safety and health. Kennedy and Leebens-Mack both acknowledge that GE technologies have been used by Big Ag to improve commodity crop yields.

USDA Certified Organic foods, by contrast, cannot use GE ingredients. This contributes to the idea that supporting organic farming and GE technologies are mutually exclusive, said Kennedy.

It doesnt have to be either/or, he said. There are wonderful things that we have and will continue to learn from organic farming, and there are amazing things that are being done by very smart people that want to save the planet in a sustainable way on the science side.

Rather than make blanket claims about GMOs, Leebens-Mack wants to community to start having more rational conversations about genetic modification and how it can be a useful tool for sustainable agriculture. The potential for corporate monopolies and corruption, the environmental and social impact GMOsthese may be valid concerns, says Leebens-Mack, but lets do a better job of articulating our concerns and then try to work through those.

Food Evolution (narrated by celebrity physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson) opened nationally in theaters June 23. To start a local discussion about GMOs, your local farmer and Wayne Parrotts lab at UGA are good places to start.

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New Documentary Challenges Views on Genetically Modified Food - Flagpole Magazine

By Mark Ambrogi

Grace Curry has embraced the entrepreneurial spirit.

Grace Curry displays the phone cases she sells through Violet Satin (Submitted photo).

Ive always been interested in making my own money as a child, selling jewelry, lemonade, inventing things, she said. I really enjoy being able to put the business together by myself, and I love marketing and advertising.

Curry, who just finished her sophomore year at Zionsville Community High School, is the founder of Violet Satin, an online company that sells iPhone cases for women and other phone accessories. The company ships to anywhere in the U.S., and customers have come from all across the nation.

Curry, who started the business in February 2016, said she designs some of the phone cases that are on her website, and the production comes from manufacturers online.

I have a website that is connected to my online website that creates custom-made products, Curry said.

It took approximately four to five months for her business to really become profitable, Curry said. Instagram is the primary source of promotion to her website. Violet Satin has more than 13,000 Instagram followers.

In addition to her business, Curry has a part-time job at Hot Box Pizza. A member of the Equality Club, among other clubs, Curry plans to join the cross country team in 2017. She competed in cross country in eighth grade.

Her plan is to major in biology and minor in business in college.

I have been into genetic engineering ever since I took biology in high school, and then genetics this year, she said. I am interested in using genetic engineering to further technology with food and medicine.

For more, visit violetsatin.com.

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Zionsville Community High School student has entrepreneurial spirit - Current in Zionsville

Genetic engineering has the potential to change the way we live. The science behind the agricultural, medical, and environmental achievements is spectacular, but this excitement is tempered by concern for the unknown effects of tampering with nature. How should we use genetic engineering?

DNA is the root of all inheritance and the key to understanding the basics of all biological inheritance and genetics.

The possibilities of this genetic engineering are endless, and everyone from medicine to industry is scrambling to adopt it and adapt it to their specific needs.

Genetic engineering changes or manipulates genes in order to achieve specific results, and there are many ways to "engineer" genetic material including fixing defective genes, replacing missing genes, copying or cloning genes, or combining genes.

How is genetic engineering used in food production? What political, environmental, and production obstacles could arise in the effort to label genetically engineered foods? What food traits would you like to see genetically engineered?

How could GE help in meeting growing demand for food around the world?

How can GE be used with animals? What are the benefits and risks of using genetic engineering with livestock or with endangered or extinct animals?

How does cloning work? What situations might be viewed as ethical uses of human cloning? Unethical?

What are the potential consequences, positive and negative, of discovery in the genetic engineering field? Who should be involved in determining the ethical limitations of the uses of genetic engineering?

Produced from 2001 through 2004, Iowa Public Television's Explore More online and broadcast series engages students in problems they can relate to, provides compelling content for investigation and gives students opportunities to form their own points of viewon contemporary issues.

Although the full website has been retired, this archive provides links to project videos and related resources. Please contact us if you have questions or comments about Explore More.

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Genetic Engineering | IPTV