The Science of Meaningful GMO Labeling October 20, 2015 Elizabeth Vierling Distinguished Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology UMass Amherst

What I want to communicate What is my bias? What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today? Not all GMOs are the same! Many foods made from GMO plants have little or NO GMO ingredients! GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture

What is my bias ?  Use knowledge-based processes to understand potential risks and rewards of new (and old) technologies  Protect the right for farmers to farm in different sustainable ways (and make a living), and for consumers to choose foods of their preference  Concern: Over-heated rhetoric is obscuring the risks and rewards of GMOs. – GMOs will double yields and solve all agricultural problems!!! – GMOs will kill you, or at least make you sick, and besides…it’s MONSANTO (buy organic) !!!

I use GMO “technology” to put genes into plants for basic research and discovery. Mustard family (Brassicaceae) Related to Canola, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage “Mouse-eared cress” (Arabidopsis thaliana) Research support: the National Science Foundation, USDA, DOE, National Institutes of Health Flower with an added Green Fluorescent protein.

My other bias: All GMOs must be tested, and they are not all the same! GM crops are evaluated by the EPA, USDA and FDA for: Risks to human health (toxicity & allergenicity) Risks of developing resistance in target pathogens or pests Risks to non-target organisms Risks from movement of the GMO genes

What I want to communicate What is my bias? What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today? Not all GMOs are the same! Many foods made from GMO plants have NO GMO ingredients! GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture

cera-gmc.org The Center for Environmental Risk Assessment (CERA): Dedicated to applying sound science to assess the risk of agricultural biotechnologies.

Types of “GMO” crops currently grown Countries listed in order of number of acres Note: There is NO “GMO” rice, wheat, peanut

Major genes in GM crops today  Herbicide tolerance (HT): Corn, soybean, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa “Roundup Ready” Gene: EPSP synthase  Insect Resistance (Bt): Corn, Cotton “Bacillus thuringensis toxin” Gene: Bt toxin  Papaya ring spot virus resistance: Papaya Gene: RSV protein

Because there are different kinds of GMOs ONE “GMO” label is not informative.

What I want to communicate What is my bias? What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today? Not all GMOs are the same! Many foods made from GMO plants have little or NO GMO ingredients! GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture

The four major Macromolecules of life: (i.e. big stuff, e.g. relative to an atom) Nucleic acids: DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid RNA– Ribonucleic acid Store and transmit information Proteins: Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) – Workhorses of our cells/bodies Lipids: Store energy (fat),lots of other functions Carbohydrates: Store energy, other stuff too

The four major Macromolecules of life: (i.e. big stuff, e.g. relative to an atom) Nucleic acids: DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid RNA– Ribonucleic acid Store and transmit information Proteins: Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) – Workhorses of our cells/bodies Lipids: Store energy (fat),lots of other functions Carbohydrates: Store energy, other stuff too

A GMO changes <0.001% of DNA, and adds 2 more proteins to the 25,000 proteins in the plant Nucleic acids: DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid RNA– Ribonucleic acid Store and transmit information Proteins: Made of Amino acids (20 kinds) – Workhorses of our cells/bodies

Corn Oil or Soybean Oil made from GMO plants contains no GMO ingredients – There is no Protein or DNA in oils or carbohydrates. So a product that uses corn or soybean oil as the only ingredient from a GMO has NO GMO material in it. Contents of Corn Oil

Products like Tostitos, even if made from GMO corn, will have so little GMO protein that, special biochemical techniques would be required to detect it.

What I want to communicate What is my bias? What are the major “transgenic crops” (“GMOs”) today? Not all GMOs are the same! Many foods made from GMO plants have NO GMO ingredients! GMO technology can be ONE way to improve agriculture

Worldwide, preharvest crop loss estimates:  13.8% due to insects and other arthropods  11.6% due to disease (fungi, bacteria, and viruses)  9.5% due to weeds Other losses due to stress: drought, cold, heat, salinization Total: 35%

The spread of Citrus Greening disease We have no way to breed citrus for resistance to this disease, but it could be done with GMO technology

Disease resistant banana by introducing a gene from pepper ResistantSusceptible Banana bacterial wilt is destroying plants in eastern Africa. GM plants carrying a resistance gene from pepper are resistant to the disease Tripathi, L., Mwaka, H., Tripathi, J.N., and Tushemereirwe, W.K. (2010). Expression of sweet pepper Hrap gene in banana enhances resistance to Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum. Molecular Plant Pathology 11:

Where to go from here?  Each crop, each “trait” (modification) needs to be evaluated separately.  We need more agricultural research! – To understand how to combat pests and disease – To move away from monoculture towards sustainable practices  A single “GMO” Label is NON-INFORMATIVE and MISLEADING.

Let’s make meaningful labels so that we can actually make an informed choice: What GMO “ingredient” has been added? How much of it is actually present in food?

Thank you