|
|
|
You can get e-magazine links on WhatsApp. Click here
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hyderabad-based CCMB develops GM fish!
|
|
Saturday, 04 July, 2009, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
|
|
Our Bureau, Mumbai
|
Even as the controversy rages over the transgenic Bt brinjal which awaits approval to start commercial production, Indian scientists have developed a genetically modified (GM) fish, which could be the first genetically engineered animal to get into the human food chain. The Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology is reported to have altered the genes of the popular Rohu (or carp), to boost its production.
The modified Rohu is claimed to have a synthesised gene which stimulates the production of a growth hormone that makes the fish bigger and grow faster. The scientists who have developed this fish maintain that they have not used any alien gene, instead they have inserted a gene into the Rohu genome which is a mashed cocktail of its own genome. This makes it auto-transgenic, and not the usual transgenic product, which gets a gene from an alien species inserted into its DNA.
While a regulatory mechanism exists for overseeing the research and safety trials o0f GM plants before their formal approval for commercialization, no such arrangement exists for GM animals and other organisms. However, it is obligatory for producers to submit proof, similar to the one needed for GM crops, that the animals or their products present no risk to humans or public health, or to other animals and the environment. Though the CCMB feat is laudable, India must put in place a system regulating GM animal production, with safety being the paramount concern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|