Plant patents: public interest versus private profit - University of California Davis helps author initiative to ensure access to patented technologies

October 1, 2003

By Winnie Ho
The Aggie News via Checkbiotech.org


Scientists now have the ability to insert genetic material from one organism into another. In the case of agriculture, plants can receive genes from all kinds of donors - animals and microbes as well as plants - in hopes of increasing nutritional value and crop yield.

1. A section of DNA that makes a desired trait must be isolated from a donor organism. For example, if a microbe produces a toxin harmful to pests, the gene responsible for the toxin can be identified and isolated for genetic engineering.

2. The isolated DNA then gets added to a circular ring of genetic material called a transfer plasmid. The plasmid acts as a molecular taxicab - ferrying the desired genes from one place to another. The plasmid gets absorbed by a special bacterium.

3. The bacterium attaches itself to the plant cell, where it then ejects the plasmid. The plasmid migrates to the plant's chromosomes.

4. At the chromosomes, the gene for the new trait becomes permanently integrated into the plant's DNA.

5. The modified plant cells are placed into a cell culture to multiply. All new cells contain the new genetic information from the donor organism.

6. The bioengineered cells are then grown in a special culture that causes them to develop into recognizable plants.

7. The plants are transferred to soil and are now genetically modified patentable organisms.

In a move to combat world food-shortage issues and support specialty crop farmers, PIPRA — the Public-Sector Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture — was launched this summer. It is an initiative that involves major U.S. agricultural universities, including UC Davis, with the goal of making patented technologies more accessible to researchers developing new crops.

The premise of the initiative is that current intellectual property rights in agricultural biotechnology cause obstacles to the distribution of improved staple crops for humanitarian purposes in the developing world and specialty crops in the developed world. PIPRA would establish a new paradigm in the management of intellectual property to alleviate this situation.

”The problem is that there has been a huge growth in patenting in the last 20 years, but not a lot of thought into how to manage them,” said Alan Bennett, executive director of the UC Office of Technology Transfer and contributing author to PIPRA.

Golden Rice is an oft-cited example of the current situation in intellectual property rights. In 1999, Golden Rice was engineered with the help of bacterial and daffodil genes. Its proponents argue that it could alleviate the crippling symptoms associated with vitamin A deficiencies in developing countries.

To create the rice, however, researchers had to employ dozens of genes and techniques that had been developed and patented by other companies, with the result that much time and effort was spent negotiating royalty payments upon commercialization of the rice — a difficult proposition in the resource-poor countries for which the rice was intended.

PIPRA would strive for more efficient access to intellectual property information, and encourage smarter licensing practices, making it easier for researchers to tap current and future inventions when developing specialty crops, or crops for humanitarian reasons.

”It’s an admirable idea,” said Calvin Qualset, professor emeritus of Agriculture and Range Sciences and director emeritus of the Genetic Resources Conservation Program. “I like it.”

While most agricultural patents — with the exception of those on strawberries — don’t generate a lot of revenue for the university which owns them, Bennett said that they are necessary to provide sufficient motivation for developing new crops and to encourage development.

Despite being touted by many as a daring new management approach to speedily deliver agricultural biotechnology to small subsistence farmers, doubts remain as to the worth of such an initiative.

Renata Brillinger, the campaign coordinator for Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, argued that corporate control of agricultural life-forms actually limits people from growing their own food. As in the Golden Rice example, the existing system in which farmers are required to pay user fees for the engineered product is not feasible in poor, developing nations.

”Any system that purports to alleviate hunger in this way is fundamentally flawed,” said Brillinger.

She expressed concerns about the inadequacy of long-term studies on ecological and health ramifications of biotechnology, and explained that plenty of opportunities exist in natural plant breeding.

Qualset, however, said that anything that will make technology more accessible would be welcome. There are two steps to helping resource-poor farmers: the research — the development of crops and genes — and the implementation — getting the technology to the people. It is the implementation which PIPRA helps to facilitate.

He is unconcerned that PIPRA might draw the ire of biotechnology critics. Comparing identical chromosomes from different organisms, Qualset stated that all genes are in fact very similar.

”Biology is often mixed with social concerns in such cases,” he said.

While gene transfer in bioengineered crops may carry environmental risks, Judith Kjelstrom, acting director of the UCD biotechnology program, said that bioengineered crops must pass stringent regulations, and that traditional crossbreeding can carry risks as well.

”The consensus of scientific opinion and evidence is that foods and feeds derived from biotechnology pose no new or unusual dangers to the environment or human health,” she said, citing studies on the safety of molecular techniques.

In the meantime, the institutions involved in the launch of PIPRA, including UC Riverside and the Rockefeller Foundation, are working to create a database which will provide an overview of licensing in the public sector, allowing researchers centralized access to such information and to simplify the detection of possible intellectual property obstacles. It is a step toward PIPRA’s avowed purpose to help public institutions to fulfill their mission in contributing to public well-being.

The Aggie News via Checkbiotech.org
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