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To be or not to be transgenic

Nature Biotechnology volume 30, pages 825–826 (2012)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

It is sad and ironic that even though much progress has been made in deciphering the genetic content of food plants and modifying their genomes for the betterment of humankind, many of the principles of modern plant genetics, firmly established decades ago, are now so easily forgotten or ignored. Such is the case with many of the alarmist arguments raised in the News Feature by Emily Waltz1 in the March issue entitled “Tiptoeing around transgenics.” Waltz focuses on the controversy surrounding the regulation of modern (and, in fact, not-so-modern) biotechnological techniques, such as those that alter single base pairs by replacing one nucleotide with another (that is, create single-nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs). We feel it is important to stress that such genetic changes must be viewed in a historical and biological context to understand why calls for new layers of regulation over technologies that introduce SNPs and other changes are unwarranted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

    Wayne A Parrott

  2. Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Joseph M Jez

  3. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    L Curtis Hannah

Authors
  1. Wayne A Parrott
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  2. Joseph M Jez
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  3. L Curtis Hannah
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Correspondence to Wayne A Parrott.

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Competing interests

J.M.J. declares no conflict of interest. L.C.H. and W.A.P. do public-sector research with genetically engineered crops. W.A.P. serves as a pro bono scientific advisor to the International Life Sciences Institute International Food Biotechnology Committee.

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Parrott, W., Jez, J. & Hannah, L. To be or not to be transgenic. Nat Biotechnol 30, 825–826 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2347

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