A doorman to keep foreign genes out

Abstract

In October 2000, news reports in the USA described that millions of bushels of genetically engineered corn approved for animal use only, had found their way into taco shells. The producer, Kraft Foods, had to withdraw the taco shells from supermarkets not only in the USA, but as far away as Japan. Only a few days later the media reported that the same corn had been found in other corn products. Investigations to determine how the modified grain found its way into the human food supply are still ongoing, although Aventis has already agreed to buy back the corn, called StarLink, at a premium price of approximately $100 million. Later, the US Department of Agriculture reported in mid‐November that this brouhaha over genetically modified food had resulted in a steady drop in USA corn exports. > The new technology will be used to breed corn with resistance to cross‐pollination—which may be a paradox, using genes to confer resistance to further genetic modification A set of genes from a wild relative of corn could solve the problem of unwanted food contamination by GM crops. Jerry Kermicle, a retired professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, discovered this molecular barrier in teosinte, a weed‐like type of corn that grows naturally in Mexico alongside cultivated hybrid corn. When Kermicle bred the genes into modern hybrid corn, they actually prevented …