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Biotech Science

Open-Source Technique for GM Crops 140

Posted by Zonk from the genemodding-in-your-garage dept.
a_d_white writes "The Biological Innovation for Open Society has developed TransBacter, a new technique for creating genetically modified crops, which is being released as a BioForge project. Their license allows anyone to use and improve the technique as long as improvements are shared with everyone, à la open source. Other techniques for creating genetically modified crops rely on Agrobacterium, but this new method allows using bacteria outside this genus. The New York Times and Wired cover the story. The founding of BIOS was mentioned previously. Although the Nature paper is available from the BIOS website, with their emphasis on the free sharing of ideas it's rather ironic that the technique was not reported in an open-access journal."
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Open-Source Technique for GM Crops More

Open-Source Technique for GM Crops

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  • GM (Score:1)

    by RandoX ( 828285 )
    Imagine my disappointment when I misread the title and thought it was some kind of hack for GM cars...

    • Re:GM (Score:2)

      by lcsjk ( 143581 )
      Well, I thought it said that an opensource technique for General Motors crops up. (For you non-USA people that means appears.)

      It's too bad I don't have mod points today because I really liked the one about the cops.

  • Right on (Score:4, Funny)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:01AM (#11629831) Homepage Journal
    This is nice to see. Information, free for all. In this casr especially, since it helps all of us.

    I wonder how many other things would benefit the 'end user' if things were opened. Auto safety for instance.
    • is nowhere nearly as efficient as helping none of us.

  • Funding? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teiresias ( 101481 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:04AM (#11629874)
    I understand BioForge [bioforge.net] is a place for scientists to collaborate but is it also a place for funding? Did the scientists who put together this article do so with funds from a University or (less likely) a corporation?

    If more of these papers are to come out, and I hope they do, the proper funding channels should be lined up since those who fund a research project tend to be very possessive about the results.

    • Re:Funding? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      From the paper:

      This work was supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Horticulture Australia and Rural Industries R&D Corporation (RIRDC).

      Obviously, BioForge doesn't have any significant grant money.

      • Obviously, BioForge doesn't have any significant grant money.

        Sorry, that came off snippier than I'd intended -- it may not even be 100% true, let alone "obvious".

    • Re:Funding? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      BioForge? Next thing you know they'll have open source GM animals and a web site called Freshmeat [freshmeat.net].

  • FYI (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:07AM (#11629906) Journal
    Their license allows anyone to use and improve the technique as long as improvements are shared with everyone, à la open source.

    More precisely, "à la the GPL". I know everyone here has "GM plants", Monsanto, terminator seeds and the RIAA muddled together into a single ball of confusion but it's not like public domain vectors haven't been available for, what, 20 years?

    At any rate, it's a nice piece of work. The submitter can sneer at them for their choice of journal, but I'd take the Nature paper if I were them.

    • Re:FYI (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "à la the GPL"

      'la' already means 'the'.
    • PLoS Biology and the other PLoS journals are good, but even though they're open access, they're not repsected the way Nature is. In addition, Nature is a general subject journal, and has a huge readership - more akin to a magazine than a journal. Putting their article in Nature, while reserving the power to distribute it freely on their site, was probably the best way to have impact. And generating news is something that Robert Jefferson is pretty good at.

    • Re:FYI (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrogers ( 85392 )
      It's more like using a GPLed compiler to write proprietary software - improvements to the tool itself must be released under the same license, but things built with the tool can be released under more restrictive licenses.

      Dr. Jefferson said that while users of the gene-splicing technology would be required to put any improvements they made into the common pool, companies and universities would be allowed to patent any products they made using the technology, like a genetically modified crop.

      I guess BIOS i

      • Re:FYI (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        I guess BIOS is at the stage GNU was at 20 years ago: first create the assembler, then the compiler, then the basic utilities, then the applications

        Well, that's my point -- the novelty here (besides the method itself, which is impressive and new) is the use of open-source terminology, not the free (by Stallman-approved usage of "free") availability of a molecular biology tool. The emphasis on IP issues here has given most of the readers a wildly skewed impression that public domain methods, tools and data

  • Bad license (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:08AM (#11629918) Homepage Journal
    Their license allows anyone to use and improve the technique as long as improvements are shared with everyone, à la open source.

    This is foolish. They should have released it under a free license for anyone except those who deny the same right to use their bio-patents. Otherwise certain scums [slashdot.org] are able to use this technique while not being forced to change their behaviour, hurting the industry, hurting the farmers, hurting the scientific progress, with no consequences. A perfect license should be useful for cross-licensing with proprietary patents portfolios but sadly this one while being certainly great in spirit is just too weak in its current form to achieve this goal. In the real world of patent sharks we need to fight a little bit harder.
    • "This is foolish. They should have released it under a free license for anyone except those who deny the same right to use their bio-patents."

      IMO, this is the wrong attitude towards this license. Do you honestly expect a commercial enterprise to turn over its entire internally funded portfolio of bio-patents to their competitors in order to use any technology that has been developed under an open source license like BIOS? It is naieve to believe that such a license would be widely adopted.

      This would be
      • Hmmm... I don't know what you're smoking, but your comments don't seem to have anything to do with what the parent was saying.

        Basically, parent was saying that the license should be like the GPL -- you can't use the information and then make it into something proprietary. Otherwise, Monsanto could take the knowledge offered for free and then make a killing selling the GMOs to farmers.

        There's no question that Monsanto has a right to protect its own bio-patents. But maybe then Monsanto shouldn't be allowed
    • I have a better idea, let's just get Monsanto crops infested with crops made with this technique and then sue them. :P

    • Re:Bad license (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mikesmind ( 689651 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @12:44PM (#11631412) Homepage
      GM crops are a bad idea, in that we don't know what the long-term effects of these modifications will be in the wild. There is no way to guarantee that unintended contamination of pure strains will not occur.

      Look at the case of Percy Schmeiser [percyschmeiser.com], a Canadian farmer whose canola crop was contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola.

      This is a wide-spread problem that is pitting the small farmer against corporate giants. Look at this article from The Des Moines Register [iastate.edu].

    • In other news, companies should not be allowed to use GPL code unless all of their code is GPL'd.

    • This is foolish. They should have released it under a free license for anyone except those who deny the same right to use their bio-patents.

      In free software, we have a long tradition of actors who are half-in, half-out of our community. We benefit from their involvement in some projects, where they are equal participants, even as we may disapprove of their other activities. It gives them the possibility to contribute without making an all-or-nothing committment. In practice, it works out well. IBM,

  • Open Source + BIOS? (Score:4, Funny)

    by schnogg ( 12192 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:11AM (#11629964) Homepage Journal
    I don't know about every one else, but I've been using Open Source and BIOS technologies together for years now.
  • Still can't do it in my kitche^H^H home lab.

    It's still easier to soak seeds in a mutagenic formula, plant them and look for interesting traits later, then clone and reproduce.
    • Is that possible!? A quick google search only turned up mutagenic stuff in roasted seeds and such like. Seems like a great science fair experiment material. Any examples of an easily available mutagenic formula?
      • I read somewhere that sodium azide is/has been used on roses. I also heard about surflan and colchicine.

        Some of that stuff will kill most of your seeds too.

        As with all carcinogens, always use lab safety, protective & handling measures.
        • I think ENU is the most commonly used plant chemical mutagen, at least in basic research. Also EMS, MNG, MNU...

          As you say, that sort of stuff is extremely nasty -- transposon-based mutagenesis is much safer (albeit more complicated and equipment-intensive).

    • Still can't do it in my kitche^H^H home lab.

      Not necessarily - As an undergrad I've done multiple gene cloning experiments as part of a lab - and more advanced cloning while interning in a research lab. The actual process of cutting and splicing genes has largely been refined by biotech supply companies so that it comes in a kit with easy to follow directions and pre-mixed solutions. All you _really_ need would be an incubator, some medium to grow your cells, a kit that is relatively (couple hundred bucks

  • If only the European nations would get a clue.

    GM crops have tremendous potential in regions such as Africa, where also, unfortunately, the governments are too afraid to use GM strains because they risk their agricultural exports with the hysterically-anti-GM nations (because of the fear of cross-polination).

    These developing countries can't even compete fairly with unmodified crops because of the unfair subsidies Western governments give their own farmers. Imagine that--taxing your highly advanced indus

    • And what is wrong with "fear of cross-polination"? Especially these damned "terminator" crops?
      You think using GM crops is going to make those unfair subsidies go away?
      We already produce more food than we can consume, we don't need GM crops. Governments, (at the behest of big business) are attempting to convince us that we do, but very few consumers are comvinced. If the consumer is given the choice between GM food and non-GM food, which do they buy?

    • If only the European nations would get a clue.

      GM crops have tremendous potential in regions such as Africa, where also, unfortunately, the governments are too afraid to use GM strains because they risk their agricultural exports with the hysterically-anti-GM nations (because of the fear of cross-polination).

      These developing countries can't even compete fairly with unmodified crops because of the unfair subsidies Western governments give their own farmers. Imagine that--taxing your highly advanced industr

    • How long is the developing world going to suffer because technological nations remain sentimental over their own agriculture?

      eing able to support all (or most) of your own population on in country grown food allows for a much higher level of national security and self sufficiency. If all your food is grown outside of the country, that become a threat to national security no matter what country you are.
    • While I whole-heartedly agree that Europe needs to get over their fear of GM crops, I'd argue that farm subsidies do make some sense, and that "sentimality" has very little to do with them.

      Two reaons:
      1. Stability. You do not want to depend on food coming in from places that are infamous for civil disorder. To a certain extent, this also influences food prices as well.
      2. Security. The last thing in the world you want is to have _someone else_ control your country's food supply, at least if you can help it.
      • 1. Stability.
        2. Security.

        3. Food raised with human waste. Cheaper isn't always better when you get Cholera.
        4. You get to pretend you are helping out farming families, when 80% of the subsidies go to big corporations (read, pollitical donors) like Monsanto and ADM.
    • GM crops have tremendous potential in regions such as Africa

      As much as the potato in Ireland.

      Of course the Famine was a result of using an imported genetic mono-crop, but I also thinking of the change, across Europe, that the introduction of potato from the Americas after 1492 created. It allowed the production of a lot of food in a small area and was army/pillage/tax resistant. A mixed result; that extra food allowed a population increase available for colonizing abroad, but helped make areas like the B

    • If only *YOU* would get a clue ...

      Let me first start by pointing out that BOTH the US and the EU subsidize their agricultural sector. This is indeed highly unfair to the Third World countries, has been recognized as such a while back by the WTO and those subsidies are in the process of being phased out.

      In any event, there is a key difference: the EU subsidizes its citizen farmers, while the US subsidizes agribusiness corporations (which have taken over the "traditional American farmer families" a looooooo

      • In any event, there is a key difference: the EU subsidizes its citizen farmers, while the US subsidizes agribusiness corporations (which have taken over the "traditional American farmer families" a looooooong time ago).

        I realize you aren't here so you may have no way of knowing this, but all our (USA) food doesn't come from big agribusiness corporations. Many people don't like the cardboard taste of corporate food or want their food organically grown. There are many small time farmers, like me, who produ

    • Just what the third world countries need is to become dependent upon GM crops, and then, ten-years from now have Monsanto decide to enforce all its patents.

      Just like with software, third world countries are best sticking to public-domain agriculture.

    • sentimental???

      Of all the products I purchase food is the ONLY one that actually becomes part of my body, so excuse me if I'm a bit fussy over what goes in.

      Some stuff is so vital and important, that the maxim 'if it aint broke dont fix it' really makes sense.
      I just don't trust mankind to mess with the food supply at this level. Its not a risk worth taking, especially as its politics and trade tarrifs making people starve, NOT a lack of food.
    • I don't have the link on me, but there was a recent report that the "Interim" Iraqi government made it illegal for Iraqi farmers to keep seeds. Not only are they going to be forced to only get GM crops from U.S. agribusinesses (the ones that donated to Bush, of course), but they are not even going to be allowed to replant.

      I'm expecting this to happen to Afghanistan as well. They are thinking ahead to control of food and water in the third world, rather than just money. Iraq is important for its water suppl
    • I'm a brit, and I was originally pro-gm crops. I thought the worry about them was another misinformed anti-science media campaign, like the MMR hysteria, and there is certainly an element of that; 'frankenfoods' etc.

      I've since changed my mind, and am now anti-GM. Seeing the actions of the GM companies with patents, and forcing people to buy seed year after year with terminator genes has made me realise that big companies are pushing GM purely for their profit, not the benefit of customers.

      I think africa w
    • If only the European nations would get a clue.

      GM crops have tremendous potential in regions such as Africa...

      What complete nonsense. GM crops are not proven safe. Furthermore any and ALL food distribution problems are political in nature(war, greed, etc.). GM crops are totally unnecessary. Plain old cooperation amongst humans are all that's needed, but greed is more convenient. Genetic modification is about money and profit. It has nothing to do with feeding starving people. If you want to modify your p
    • This post is modded "Score:2, Insightful" !?!?!? If it doesnt change very fast, I don't like Slashdot anymore :(

      Do you blame the Global Warming on Ford? Nobody does. Did he play a key role in it? Well, noone can deny that (thought some might argue about it for long if they bothered).

      What is dangerous is greed and foolishness. Like Monsanto rushing out to use a largely uncontrolled new technology on a cornerstone of life on Earth to make money for their share holders. And the people who keep whining about

    • GM crops have tremendous potential in regions such as Africa

      Let's not fall for the myth that there is a world food shortage. Crisis, yes; shortage, no. There's actually plenty of food to feed everyone and more, the problem is in distribution and the international markets (note for example, that even at the height of the famine in 1984, Ethiopia was still a net agricultural exporter; 'course you can't feed your population on coffee beans). You're absolutely right that Western governments have rigged

  • I don't know too much about this topic, but isn't it theoretically possible for someone to develop a strain of GM crop that has detrimental qualities (such as significantly decreased lifespan or yield), and then release that crop into the wild?

    I remember that a farmer was successfully sued for having GM crops on his farm which were patented by a corporation. It turns out he didn't purposefully plant that strain of crop; wind currents allowed the GM strain to migrate to his farm, where it then began establ

  • Terrorism (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seems like a way to introduce a harmful gm product as a weapon to destroy a nations food supply. By providing this information so readily it may make the job much easier. Especially as improvements to the techniques are made.

  • oh boy (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:22AM (#11630109)
    Tomacco will finally become reality

  • Whoops! (Score:3, Funny)

    by JossiRossi ( 840900 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:26AM (#11630167) Homepage
    Sorry guys. My modified corn crop not only causes cancer in 90% of all people it also kinda crossbred with the native corn in most of the southwest... so... uh... Sorry Guys.

  • Neat, solution for Monsanto (Score:4, Funny)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:27AM (#11630171) Homepage
    When monsanto crops breed with your GPL crops, they have to release the genetic code or they are in violation of the liscense?
  • I wonder whether they're going to open source round up ready cocaine [wired.com]

    After all Cocaine wants to be free too.

    • Interesting article, trouble is that the conclusion is that the stain is the result of selective breeeding, not genetic engineering.

      I particularly like the final sentence [wired.com]:

      "In this war, it's hard to beat technology developed 10,000 years ago."

  • Biodiversity (Score:1, Interesting)

    by p373 ( 689997 )
    Does biodiversity mean a thing to any of you? Having one strain of GM corn dominate all of an an area's crops might be awesome when it comes to raising productivity levels and immunity to pesticides, but when an unforseen disease starts to affect the plants (which can happen a lot) they would be completely wiped out, because they are all the same. Nature does it better, lets not fuck around with it.

    Introducing GM plants to an area can be compared to introducing alien species to a place where they do not

    • Re:Biodiversity (Score:1, Insightful)

      by ovit ( 246181 )
      Yeah, and while we're at it, medicine is hard... We might screw up and kill somebody... Lets just let nature decide whether you should die or not when you step on a rusty nail...

      Shoot, lets just all go back to living in caves...

      In fact, I propose that we should just GIVE UP trying to solve any hard problem... Nature already does it better in most cases anyway, right?
      • Your arguement doesnt work. Treating yourself with medicine affects you and only you. You are not genetically engineering your children to be immune to disease, or injecting the entire population in your area with the medicine you think they need. There is the difference.
      • A better analagy:

        For a while, people thought antibiotics were the solution to everything.

        So, they were used all the time.

        Now, there are tons and tons of resistent bacteria.

        If the use of antibiotics had been more controlled and cautious, this might not have happened.

        Noone is saying that GM doesn't have a place in our future. Just that there are dangers associated with it, and that we need to take these dangers seriously.

        Consider Thalidomide [wikipedia.org].

        In fact, I propose that we should just GIVE UP trying to sol

    • Re:Biodiversity (Score:2, Interesting)

      by asoko ( 657763 )
      My uncle is part of a small group of people who are experimenting a "new" form of agriculture, wherein you let nature do its job. You basically make it hard on the plants, by spreading diseased ones all over the field rather than removing them. Some plants die, but some survive.

      The end result is a crop that may not produce the best yield under perfect conditions, but it is so resistant to disease and weather that it ALWAYS produces something. It's basically the opposite of these engineered, single-strai
  • Talk about viral marketing.
  • I wrote this the other day in response to hearing about a professor who is all bent out of shape because some corn variety may be gone forever.

    It also touches on some surrounding GMO issues, but it really sums up my position on the matter.
    ---------

    As far as GM crops go, there is no stopping scientific progress.
    Instead, we should be dealing with how we are going to deal with
    possible consequences. If that professor had instead made a research
    project out of preserving the DNA of "irreplaceable native Mexica
    • A lost corn variety is a sad thing, IMHO. Until you have enjoyed the savory pleasure of fresh sweet corn (many varieties), not the crap you find at the store, but the kind that was picked this morning and sold out of a truck on the side of the road, well bite your tongue.

      That aside, I respect your position and your opinion. Its pretty cool, you have your opinions and I have mine.

      I have the opinion that I don't want to eat GMOs, nor do I want to feed them to my family. I recognize that one of the realiti

    • Why do you think that genetic engineering is a solution for any problem?

      Why do you think -- no, *believe* -- that it will save us?

      Look at the current, desperate state of modern medicine. Every medicine is almost at least as harmful as helpful. Check the failures, the side effects discovered too late, the whole rush to push out the product to make profit.

      This is the same with the GMO stuff as well. They are doing everything to please their sponsors and deliver the products. The only difference is, you can
      • I don't think genetic engineering is a solution for any problem. That is stupid.

        I do think it has the power to save us from various current and future problems.

        The current state of medicine has helped COUNTLESS more people than it has hurt. Yes, we will look back on it someday the way we look back at medieval barbers. Does that mean we should halt all current efforts?

        As I said in my post, you can't stop progress. We should be planning on how to deal with the ramifications, not hoping that it doesn't
        • >I don't think genetic engineering is a solution for any problem. That is stupid.
          >I do think it has the power to save us from various current and future problems.

          These two sentences seem to carry opposite meanings.

          >The current state of medicine has helped COUNTLESS more people than it has hurt. Yes, we will look back on it someday the way we look back at medieval barbers. Does that mean we should halt all current efforts?

          No. Nobody is talking abouthalting current efforts. What I would like to se
  • I don't think the analogy with open source software is quite right. After all, with OSS I have a choice - I download the software, .configure, make install and I have it. Then if it I choose I can delete it. With this stuff I can still choose whether I want to plant it or eat it, but I cannot choose whether my neighbor's GM'd tomatoes pollinate my tomatoes. I won't find out until I plant the resulting seeds next summer and WHOA! My tomatoes have deformed frog legs on them, but geez, they grow like the dick

  • What about liability issues? When it was discovered that asbestos caused cancer, the company who manufactured it was liable. Who's liable if something goes wrong with open-source GM crops?

    www.empiresofsteel.com [empiresofsteel.com]
  • Isn't science supposed to be about open exhange of information?

    Aren't most of the open source licenses based on the open exchange of information that is a major component of research? The BSD license is a good example of it, you can use the code as long as you attribute it correctly. GPL is just placing safe guards so that the information cannot be 'locked up'.

    It looks like the wheel has come full circle.
  • I don't really think it's ironic - scientific journals are about prestige, and the impact factor of Nature is very high - over 30. I don't think any of the open access journals even have impact factors yet.

    If the purpose of the announcement is to reach as many as the biological sciences community as possible, you want to put the announcement in the journal that most of them read.

  • *Boo-Hoo* (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by OzPhIsH ( 560038 )
    Whaaah. I'm a big jerk residing in a rich liberal nation. I always have plenty to eat and it costs next to nothing, thanks to outragous government subsidies to prop up my developed nations faltering agricultural industry, keeping poor developing nations poor in one of the only industries they might possibly compete. I really don't understand GM technology, but due to the social status quo of my liberal country, I think it should be banned. I might have grandchildren with the improper amount of toes! Meanwhi
  • This is not the "open source" way of doing things.

    Open source just requires you release your source code. It does NOT require anyone else release their modifications.

    This is the GNU model, forcing others to release their changes.

    Pay more attention!
  • Many years ago, compress was the standard unix compression utility, and it was based on the LZW algorithm. It was patented, and the patent holder started making threatening noises. While some would have been content to pay royalties, and others would ignore the patent, the GNU project saw the need to have an unencumbered compression utility. They wrote gzip, which is now the unix standard. Freedom wins.

    Agrobacterium is compress. It's basically the only game in town for gene transfer into plants, wh

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