The Globalization of Biotechnology
BY M. SALEET JAFRI
The application of biotechnology has the potential to create rapid advances on a global scale in the agricultural and medical fields. Significant financial rewards are possible however there are also certain ethical responsibilities that need to be met. Biotechnology has the potential to improve the human situation in developing nations as well as the rest of the world.
Biotechnology has been defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity, with acceptance by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization, as “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products and processes for specific uses.” This includes medical advances that improve healthcare outcomes as well as advances in agriculture that help nourish people around the world. It also includes other fields such as bioremediation and biodefense. This article will focus on the first two areas. Using this definition, biotechnology has been around for long time, as it includes animal husbandry, the fermentation process used to make alcohol and more recently, the development of the polio vaccine. When discussing ‘biotechnology’ today, many people are referring specifically to molecular biotechnology. Molecular biotechnology allows scientists to manipulate organisms at the genetic and molecular level. These techniques arose with the advances in molecular biology due to the various genome projects including the Human Genome Project and the Rice Genome Project. Through these efforts scientist can modify a plant to express certain traits by introducing a new gene. Scientists can also understand what particular gene might give rise to a disease and possibly use this information to screen and treat a disease.
Most developing nations rely heavily on agriculture and related goods both for domestic necessities as well as for general economic productivity. In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture accounts for roughly 70 percent of employment, 40 percent of exports and one-third of GNP. In many countries with insufficient food resources, there are problems with the availability of arable land. Often there are insufficient water, poor soil fertility, high soil salinity or acidity, temperature extremes, and pests and plant diseases. One such example is Pakistan, which has an agricultural economy and suffers from many of these problems. Pakistan has a large population, many poor farmers with small land holdings, dwindling arable land due to environmental change and major problems with crop pests. Genetically modified crops might be a yield permitting technology through its creation of plants that can yield crops in the harsh environments prevalent in many parts of the world. Yield improvements can be furthered by implementing proper agronomic techniques such as crop rotation, proper fertilization and irrigation. However there is very strong evidence that sufficient resources are not being invested in agricultural research in developing countries. In Africa, 194 million people (most of them children) are undernourished. In cases where past investment has occurred, while very limited in developing nations, there have been gains far exceeding the costs. One of the major benefits is increased agricultural productivity that leads to more affordable and plentiful food. Unfortunately, while the consumers gain, the small farmer usually does not benefit. Instead, large commercial farms are often the beneficiaries of advances in agricultural biotechnology.
Publicly funded agricultural research initiatives must be established in order to ensure that agricultural biotechnology becomes a public resource that can benefit all farmers either big or small. To this end, it is necessary to develop independent research and technology organizations that are funded by the government and/or the private sector to develop genetically modified crops that are affordable and available to both large and small farmers. It is not sufficient to rely on large multinational corporations in developed nations to develop the appropriate genetically modified crops. Large multinational companies developing genetically modified crops reportedly do so for cash crops in developed nations. In Pakistan, some farmers seeking to improve yields have resorted to smuggled foreign genetically modified crops which are inappropriate, resulting in more obstacles to improving agricultural output. Genetically modified crops often use “terminator technologies” that prevent germination of grain as seed. While this helps to prevent the unwanted spread of genetically modified crops into the environment, it also prevents poor farmers in developing countries from saving their seed to grow more grain. They would need to purchase genetically modified seed every year, an expense that they cannot afford. Each nation has its own specific needs in terms of crops, pests and pathogens and environmental conditions. Hence, each country should develop the crops that best suits their needs.
An example of the potential benefits is described by Conway and Toenniessen. In Kenya, a single mother attempting to grow crops such as maize, cassava and bananas suffered great difficulties due to local pathogens and environmental conditions. The maize crop suffered from boring insects, the parasitic weed Striga and streak virus; the cassava was destroyed by cassava mealybugs and mosaic virus; and the bananas were infected with weevils, nematodes, and black Sigatoka fungus. Solutions to these problems were found through a combination of biotechnology and better agronomic practices. A parasitic wasp from the Paraguay River basin was introduced in effort to control the cassava mealy bugs. Using DNA markers for mosaic virus resistance, the appropriate resistant strains were raised instead of the susceptible variety. Streak virus-resistant maize developed by the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) was used. This genetically modified variety also had the properties that enabled it to tolerate nitrogen poor soils. The grain could then be used for subsequent plantings. The Kenyan mother also obtained virus resistant banana seedlings created by tissue culture from KARI. She learned strategies to increase soil fertility through of the work of organizations such as the KARI, the Kenyan Universities, the International Center for Agroforestry and the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program. The Kenyan woman also learned better agronomic methods such as crop spacing, cover crops, how to mix crops and how to apply fertilizer.
There are also problems unique to developing nations that can benefit from biotechnology. The UN Development Program’s 2001 Human Development Report identified biotechnology as the method through which major health challenges such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria in poor countries can be tackled. These and other health issues are very prevalent in poor nations. However there is little incentive to entice for-profit pharmaceutical companies in developed nations to develop diagnosis and treatment strategies for markets where there is a lack of money available to pay for the treatments. Drugs produced by these entities are often costly and sometimes require specific storage conditions not readily available in developing nations. As a result, development will likely come from other sources such as charitable efforts or homegrown efforts in the developing nations.
Dr. Waheed Khan of Azko Inc., a small biotechnology firm in Maryland, has developed a HIV/AIDS test kit specifically made to be affordable for HIV/AIDS testing in Africa. This has been approved in seven other countries and adopted by the World Health Organization. Dr. Khan has also developed and obtained FDA approval for a typhoid test kit. Typhoid typically arises in counties with contaminated water supplies and commonly occurs after flooding. The current Widal test is only 10 percent accurate and the gold standard is a blood culture that takes seven days. By the end of seven days, a person infected with typhoid would suffer a perforated intestine and be difficult to save. The kit developed by Azko Inc. is based on new biotechnology, takes only ten minutes and is 98.5 percent accurate. In India, Cipla Ltd. is a pharmaceutical company that has gone from a drug manufacturer to a drug innovator. They have developed a novel antiretroviral drug zidovudin for treating HIV/AIDS. Typically, drug treatment of HIV/AIDS can cost $15,000 a year. This new drug costs about one dollar per day. It is important to note that in addition to the direct health benefits of biotechnology, companies employing biotechnology in developing nations will benefit the local population through creation of jobs. Hence, there are clear advantages in using biotechnology to address some of the large healthcare issues in the developing world. This can only be done if biotechnology is shared globally.
The argument is sometimes made that sharing biotechnology with the rest of the world can increase the risk of bioterrorism. Biotechnology, like any other scientific discovery, can be used for good or bad depending on how people choose to use it. There is sufficient reason to encourage the globalization of biotechnology. According to Helen Purkitt, “In a highly globalized world it seems nearly impossible to stop the flow of scientific research results or strategic writings.” In fact, the potential of biotechnology to improve the condition of many people around the world would likely reduce the recruiting ground for potential terrorists. As former President Jimmy Carter said, “There can be no peace until people have enough to eat…Hungry people are not peaceful people.”
Agricultural and medical biotechnology are two examples where science advances shared locally results in benefits for the global community. Agricultural biotechnology can help feed the world’s population and improve the economies of developing countries. Medical biotechnology can also improve the conditions of life worldwide as well as bring economic benefit. Improving the conditions of people in developing nations will help bring stability and stem violence in regions where unrest is the result of competition for resources or from a lack of opportunity to feed ones family.
Saleet Jafri (sjafri@gmu.edu) is professor and chair of the department of Bioinformatics/Computational Biology (http://www.bioinformatics. gmu.edu/research.html). This article was first published in print and citations have been removed due to space limitations, but are available from the author.
