Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation

NYT ^ | August 28, 2007 | William J. Broad

[Schnucki]

VIENNA — Pierre Lagoda pulled a small container from his pocket and spilled the contents onto his desk. Four tiny dice rolled to a stop.

“That’s what nature does,” Dr. Lagoda said. The random results of the dice, he explained, illustrate how spontaneous mutations create the genetic diversity that drives evolution and selective breeding.

He rolled the dice again. This time, he was mimicking what he and his colleagues have been doing quietly around the globe for more than a half-century — using radiation to scramble the genetic material in crops, a process that has produced valuable mutants like red grapefruit, disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for Scotch whiskey.

“I’m doing the same thing,” he said, still toying with the dice. “I’m not doing anything different from what nature does. I’m not using anything that was not in the genetic material itself.”

Dr. Lagoda, the head of plant breeding and genetics at the International Atomic Energy Agency, prides himself on being a good salesman. It can be a tough act, however, given wide public fears about the dangers of radiation and the risks of genetically manipulated food. His work combines both fields but has nonetheless managed to thrive.

The process leaves no residual radiation or other obvious marks of human intervention. It simply creates offspring that exhibit new characteristics.

Though poorly known, radiation breeding has produced thousands of useful mutants and a sizable fraction of the world’s crops, Dr. Lagoda said, including varieties of rice, wheat, barley, pears, peas, cotton, peppermint, sunflowers, peanuts, grapefruit, sesame, bananas, cassava and sorghum. The mutant wheat is used for bread and pasta and the mutant barley for beer and fine whiskey.

The mutations can improve yield, quality, taste, size and resistance to disease and can help plants adapt to diverse climates and conditions.

[Caipirabob]

Here's a question: Can the method of exposure to the given dosage of radiation isolate the intended target? If not, won't other "organisms" down to the random microbes in the vicinity be impacted as well?

And due to that, isn't the results of the mutation subject the to environment in which the experiment is conducted? Wouldn't the targeted organism also be impacted by the resulting mutation to the other surrounding organisms, for which there would be no measurable assessment of impact of exposure to radiation?

You can guess where this is going. For all of the assessed components of these experiments, there's an untold, unknown number of other organisms impacted by mutations that aren't tracked.

Hopefully, they are contained as a result of overall control.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl