LONDON: Scientists say they’ve managed to produce genetically modified bacteria that are safer to use in industry since they would just die off if they escaped into the natural world.
Microorganisms that have been genetically engineered are widely used in the production of drugs or fuels in contained industrial processes, and researchers have been seeking ways to make them less likely to be an ecological hazard if they were to escape that containment.
The solution, researchers say, is to genetically modify them so that they can only exist on artificial nutrients, types of synthetic amino acids that simply don’t occur in the natural world.
If such genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, escaped into the wild, they would simply starve and die, they say.
The research to this point has focused on bacteria, so the technique is a long way from possible use to create safer GMO plants or animals, but the work so far is “a compelling solution to biological containment,” says Harvard Medical School professor of genetics George Church, a co-author of one of two studies recently published on such genetic modifications.
