A Dream of Trees Aglow at Night
Baku, May 13 (AZERTAC). Hoping to give new meaning to the term natural light, a small group of biotechnology hobbyists and entrepreneurs has started a project to develop plants that glow, potentially leading the way for trees that can replace electric streetlamps and potted flowers luminous enough to read by.
The project, which will use a sophisticated form of genetic engineering called synthetic biology, is attracting attention not only for its audacious goal, but for how it is being carried out. A university group created a glowing tobacco plant a few years ago by implanting genes from a marine bacterium that emits light. We hope to have a plant which you can visibly see in the dark (like glow-in-the-dark paint), but dont expect to replace your light bulbs with version 1.0, the projects Kickstarter page says.But part of the goal is more controversial: to publicize do-it-yourself synthetic biology and to inspire others to create new living things.
Two environmental organizations, Friends of the Earth and the ETC Group, have written to Kickstarter and to the Agriculture Department, which regulates genetically modified crops, in an effort to shut down the glowing plant effort.
The project will likely result in widespread, random and uncontrolled release of bioengineered seeds and plants produced through the controversial and risky techniques of synthetic biology, the two groups said in their letter demanding that Kickstarter remove the project from its Web site.
They note that the project has pledged to deliver seeds to many of its 4,000 contributors, making it perhaps the first-ever intentional environmental release of an avowedly synthetic biology organism anywhere in the world.
Antony Evans, the manager of the glowing plant project, said in an interview that the activity would be safe.
Synthetic biology is a nebulous term and it is difficult to say how, if at all, it differs from genetic engineering.
In its simplest form, genetic engineering involves snipping a gene out of one organism and pasting it into the DNA of another.
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