Agricultural Biotechnology: What's the Greatest Innovation?
The following is a submission to a survey that was conducted describing innovations in agricultural biotechnology.
Dr Jorge E Mayer
MIP TM attorney, manager Golden Rice Project
The most important breakthrough in my area of work was the development of the capability to introduce genes into plants across the species barrier. This has not only paved the way to enhance the nutritional qualities of crops in a tissue-specific manner, as in the case of Golden Rice, but has opened the gate in general to the Doubly Green Revolution, as it has been coined.
Over the last 10 years, the adoption of genetically enhanced crops has advanced at an unprecedented pace in the history of agriculture. Moreover, the ability to turn genes on and off is being used as a tool to understand plant physiology at the molecular level, with the prospect of facilitating the rise of second-generation transgenics that will contribute to feeding a growing world population in a sustainable manner.
