#The syndicate project seed full#
#The syndicate project seed series#
#The syndicate project seed free#

#The syndicate project seed free#

If agricultural biotechnology corporations like Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer - not to mention other firms that work with genetic resources, including pharmaceutical companies and synthetic biology start-ups - have free access to such databases, the providers of the desired genes are very likely to lose out. Managing access to large genomic databases thus becomes critically important to prevent a virtual version of the theft carried out by Rolfe and Wickham.ДЄnd, indeed, in an unguarded e-mail released under the US Freedom of Information Act, one of the US Department of AgricultureвЂ™s top maize scientists, Edward Buckler, called such management вЂњthe big issue of our timeвЂќ for plant breeding. The selected adjustments might then be made to, say, the parents of a new Monsanto or DuPont Pioneer maize hybrid. Those data act as a sort of roadmap and resource pool, enabling scientists to compare sequences on a computer screen and identify pertinent variations. What is needed is the genetic sequences of thousands of types of maize.

No major new advance in the technology is needed to unlock this possibility. More complicated viruses and some bacteria are in the range of such techniques today, though wholly synthesising a higher organism with a more complex genome, such as maize, is many years away.Д«ut that may not matter, as new gene-editing technologies, like CRISPR-Cas9, enable scientists to stitch together complicated new organisms, using gene sequence information from organisms to which they do have physical access.ДЇor example, the key traits of a drought-resistant maize from a Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico, might be reproduced by editing the genes of another maize variety. The virus can spread faster electronically than it does in nature. If they then post that strainвЂ™s sequence on the Internet, American and European laboratories may be able to synthesise the new virus from the downloaded data faster and more easily than if they wait for a courier to deliver a physical sample.

Today, when a new strain of influenza appears in Asia, scientists collect a throat swab, isolate the virus, and run the strainвЂ™s genetic sequence. The tiny virus that causes influenza is a leading-edge example of technical developments.

#The syndicate project seed series#

In fact, genes, even entire organisms, can already move virtually - squishy and biological at each end, but nothing more than a series of ones and zeros while en route. And, with gene sequencing becoming faster and cheaper than ever, and gene-editing technology advancing rapidly, such exchanges may be possible sooner than you think. Such Internet-facilitated exchanges of biodiversity would clearly be much harder to regulate. What if, with only gene sequences, scientists could вЂњanimateвЂќ the appropriate genetic material? The majority of international exchanges of seeds, plants, animals, microbes and other biological goods are accompanied by the requisite permits, including a material transfer agreement.Д«ut what if one did not have to send any material at all? What if all it took to usurp the desired seeds was a simple e-mail?

While some people surely manage to evade regulations, laboriously developed legal systems ensure that it is far from easy. The 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, in particular, has helped to safeguard the rights of providers of genetic resources - such as (ideally) the farmers and indigenous people who have protected and nurtured valuable genes - by enshrining national sovereignty over biodiversity. To be sure, over the last few decades, great strides have been made in regulating the deliberate movement of the genetic material of animals, plants and other living things across borders. Thanks to advances in genetics, it may soon take even less.

#The syndicate project seed full#

More than 200 years later, another Briton, Henry Wickham, took seeds for a rubber bearing tree from Brazil to Asia - via that great colonialist institution, LondonвЂ™s Royal Botanic Gardens - thereby setting the stage for the eventual demise of the Amazonian rubber boom.ДЄt a time of unregulated plant exports, all it took was a suitcase full of seeds to damage livelihoods and even entire economies. Four hundred years ago, John Rolfe used tobacco seeds pilfered from the West Indies to develop VirginiaвЂ™s first profitable export, undermining the tobacco trade of SpainвЂ™s Caribbean colonies.