Enviropig Risks and Benefits

Don Lee, Presenter Author

02/22/2016 Added

2541 Plays

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The risks and benefits of genetic engineering in the context of the Enviropig project For more information visit the Enviropig website: https://ge.unl.edu/enviropig/

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[00:00:03.818]Hello, this is Don Lee,
[00:00:05.432]and I'd like to wrap up our storytelling
[00:00:10.111]of the Enviropig genetic engineering story
[00:00:13.774]by presenting kind of an evaluation of the risks
[00:00:19.709]and benefits that might be affiliated with this story.
[00:00:23.929]And this'll be a good way to lead
[00:00:26.771]you into thinking about risks and benefits,
[00:00:30.301]and the evaluation of genetically
[00:00:33.355]engineered projects and products.
[00:00:36.740]So, I've got a list of questions I wanna address.
[00:00:39.623]And I'll start with the first one.
[00:00:41.628]Was the genetic engineering approach used by the
[00:00:44.618]University of Guelph Scientists successful in
[00:00:46.895]producing transgenic pigs with
[00:00:48.732]low phosphorus manure.
[00:00:51.493]So, we've been learning about the steps
[00:00:53.729]involved in their work.
[00:00:55.274]How they combined DNA information from mice
[00:00:58.659]and bacteria to make a trans-gene that would
[00:01:01.357]tell the pig how to encode Phytase enzyme in their
[00:01:04.684]salivary cells to help them digest this
[00:01:07.064]previously indigestible phytate in
[00:01:12.853]phosphorus holding competent in their grain.
[00:01:15.695]And if they took that gene and successfully transformed
[00:01:19.187]embryonic pigs cells, they could generate
[00:01:22.363]transgenic pigs born from surrogate mothers,
[00:01:25.538]and then if they selected this pigs that had the trans-gene,
[00:01:30.835]they could get to their final assessment,
[00:01:33.370]and that is, did it work?
[00:01:35.367]Did the expression of this trans-gene
[00:01:37.952]result in lower level of phosphorus
[00:01:41.146]in the pig manure.
[00:01:42.803]It isn't until you get to that final result
[00:01:44.878]that you know if you've been successful
[00:01:47.438]or not in the problem solving adventure
[00:01:51.678]of genetic engineering.
[00:01:53.435]So, if we look at this research article published in 2001,
[00:01:59.577]we can see that they were indeed absolutely successful.
[00:02:03.845]This big team of researchers led by Cecil Forsberg
[00:02:07.210]not only accomplished the science of discovery
[00:02:10.961]and the application of genetic engineering
[00:02:13.305]technology, they could evaluate how this impacted
[00:02:16.836]their transgenic pigs and could determine that it
[00:02:20.203]did indeed drop the phosphorus levels in manure
[00:02:23.836]to levels that would be much more beneficial
[00:02:28.006]in terms of environmental impact
[00:02:31.907]and therefore the science application,
[00:02:36.074]in this case, was very successful.
[00:02:41.479]The success is also kind of outlined
[00:02:44.037]and detailed in the web pages from this
[00:02:46.985]University of Guelph team and you can learn more
[00:02:50.303]by going into some of their web pages
[00:02:53.787]and it turns out to be a story that they're proud of
[00:02:57.692]because of the way they approached it,
[00:03:00.006]the transparency that they had in tackling this scientific
[00:03:06.050]problem, and the scientific success that they had.
[00:03:11.358]So certainly this genetic engineering project
[00:03:13.967]was successful from the perspective that the scientists
[00:03:17.942]that were,
[00:03:21.843]were engaged in carrying out these experiments
[00:03:26.938]and these procedures.
[00:03:28.960]So that makes our second question relevant.
[00:03:31.934]Are Enviropigs part of our food system today?
[00:03:34.714]When we buy a ham or bacon
[00:03:37.274]or a pork roast, are there pigs contributing
[00:03:42.392]to our food system that are genetically engineered
[00:03:46.001]with this Enviropig characteristic.
[00:03:48.856]So let's take a look at that part of the story.
[00:03:52.265]At the same time the scientists like Cecil Forsberg
[00:03:55.950]and his team were working on the science
[00:03:59.313]of creating genetically engineered Enviropigs
[00:04:03.628]and then breeding them, they had to convince
[00:04:06.969]the regulatory agencies that these pigs would be
[00:04:09.896]safe to grow and safe to eat and safe
[00:04:13.041]for the environment, and so the regulatory agencies
[00:04:16.353]in both the United States and in Canada,
[00:04:19.353]have the responsibility of examining these
[00:04:23.772]from a scientific point of view,
[00:04:26.065]and what this requires then is the developers
[00:04:29.891]to invest time and money in order to present
[00:04:33.087]the experimental data that these regulatory agencies
[00:04:36.573]are asking for to address the safety questions.
[00:04:41.912]And because of the time and money involved,
[00:04:46.228]this can be a real risky part of the transgenic process,
[00:04:50.982]and in addition to the scientific issues,
[00:04:54.539]you'll discover as you go through this risk
[00:04:57.878]and benefit section, there are other kinds of arguments
[00:05:00.585]raised for and against the use of this technology
[00:05:05.461]and as a result, the answer to this question is no.
[00:05:11.727]While the science was successful
[00:05:16.678]in producing transgenic pigs, it had the intended impact,
[00:05:20.384]these pigs are not currently a part of our food system.
[00:05:24.625]This would be a very interesting
[00:05:26.922]research area for some of you to pursue
[00:05:30.358]if you wanna understand why this technology
[00:05:33.823]is and sometimes is not accepted
[00:05:37.285]in a part of our food system,
[00:05:39.864]but the answer that we can certainly say is no.
[00:05:42.224]We don't see Enviropigs.
[00:05:44.830]So that kind of leads us to question three.
[00:05:47.542]Was the use of genetic engineering
[00:05:49.771]a good idea in solving this environmental problem,
[00:05:53.653]or did it turn out to be a bad idea,
[00:05:56.542]maybe a waste of time.
[00:05:58.859]So let's go ahead and examine the
[00:06:00.997]answer to that question.
[00:06:04.173]This diagram outlines how pigs are
[00:06:11.408]produced now in order to produce manure
[00:06:14.982]that has far less phosphorus that
[00:06:17.980]could cause environmental damage.
[00:06:20.209]And the technology involved in
[00:06:23.630]this answer is genetic engineering technology.
[00:06:28.679]And you're probably able to take a look at how
[00:06:31.681]they did the genetic engineering,
[00:06:33.355]you can see that somehow the genetic information
[00:06:36.289]from bacteria and fungus were combined
[00:06:39.598]to make a trans-gene that could
[00:06:41.959]tell a living cell how to make this Phytase enzyme,
[00:06:46.342]but instead this trans-gene was placed
[00:06:49.164]into living fungal cells, more specifically,
[00:06:53.115]Aspergillus fungus, and scientists have alot
[00:06:56.772]of experience in growing these Aspergillus
[00:06:59.111]in culture in order to produce special
[00:07:01.671]biological molecules for different kinds of purposes.
[00:07:06.668]Medical purposes, additives in food,
[00:07:09.618]or industrial purposes.
[00:07:13.473]As it turns out, farmers had the option of
[00:07:17.468]getting Phytase enzyme from strains of these
[00:07:22.270]Aspergillus, but it was fairly expensive.
[00:07:25.710]It added a lot of cost up front
[00:07:27.881]to the pig producers,
[00:07:31.197]because this enzyme was expensive
[00:07:34.146]and had to be added to the feed.
[00:07:36.244]But by genetically engineering strains
[00:07:38.973]of these fungus that did this process much
[00:07:41.534]more efficiently, and produced forms of this
[00:07:44.529]enzyme that worked much better in
[00:07:46.822]the pigs stomach to digest phytate,
[00:07:49.958]they were able to use genetic engineering
[00:07:52.911]to bring the cost of this enzyme down.
[00:07:55.420]So we do not have genetically engineered Enviropigs
[00:08:01.765]producing meat for the pork market today,
[00:08:06.716]but genetic engineering has been instrumental
[00:08:09.276]in bringing the cost of adding Phytase
[00:08:12.957]to the pig's diet down and therefore
[00:08:15.662]resulting in more pigs that have
[00:08:18.636]low levels of phosphorous in their manure.
[00:08:21.781]So the answer to question three is yes.
[00:08:25.488]Genetic engineering was used to solve
[00:08:27.923]this environmental problem,
[00:08:29.607]but it was genetic engineering applied to a fungus
[00:08:32.876]that's grown in culture.
[00:08:34.434]Not genetic engineering applied
[00:08:36.388]to one of our meat animals.
[00:08:39.166]So that leads us to our last question.
[00:08:41.803]You know, what did we learn about
[00:08:44.288]the application of genetic engineering to problem solving?
[00:08:47.311]Can we take what we learn and project what that
[00:08:50.505]might tell us about future prospects of genetic engineering
[00:08:54.700]when it comes to applying it to solve problems
[00:08:57.378]in our food system,
[00:08:58.649]in the health care system,
[00:09:02.085]or in solving environmental problems,
[00:09:05.695]and I think one way to address this question
[00:09:08.716]is the fast forward ten years to a paper
[00:09:12.006]published on transgenic pigs in 2011.
[00:09:16.664]This is ten years after the Enviropigs were
[00:09:19.516]successfully produced.
[00:09:21.321]This group of scientists describe how they are
[00:09:24.516]advocates for the production of
[00:09:27.315]genetically engineered pigs for biomedical research,
[00:09:31.068]and they lay out the reasons why
[00:09:32.603]pigs are a very important organism,
[00:09:34.902]that's a part of coming up with new
[00:09:37.173]approaches to solving health care
[00:09:41.236]problems in people.
[00:09:43.176]And how success in genetic engineering
[00:09:47.120]could be looked at to have more
[00:09:49.573]success in solving problems in human health.
[00:09:52.996]And so I think that the benefit of making
[00:09:56.086]transgenic pigs is pretty obvious to many people
[00:09:59.609]when they think of it in this context,
[00:10:02.191]and certainly the success that Cecil Forsberg
[00:10:06.123]and his team had in learning how to create
[00:10:10.081]genetically engineered pigs and sharing
[00:10:13.198]that insight with the world
[00:10:15.496]would benefit scientists in the future,
[00:10:19.175]such as this group, looking at genetic engineering
[00:10:22.394]in the bio medial world.
[00:10:24.206]So while the answer to this question
[00:10:27.451]is probably complicated and is gonna have
[00:10:30.410]to be decided on a case by case basis,
[00:10:32.863]our hope is that you as a learner
[00:10:35.190]have a better understanding of what
[00:10:36.751]genetic engineering is, and how it was applied
[00:10:39.046]in this particular story, and you can do a better
[00:10:43.213]job if you're involved in that decision
[00:10:45.862]making in the future.
[00:10:48.235]Thank you very much.

Enviropig Risks and Benefits

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Enviropig Risks and Benefits

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