GM sensitivities force caution on biotech R&D

Consumer sensitivities over genetically modified foods are forcing biotech researchers in Australia's sugar industry to walk a tightrope.

The billion-dollar industry can't afford to ignore the potential of transgenic research for increasing sugarcane yields, cutting losses from pest and virus infestations and diversifying the industry into molecular farming.

But neither can it afford to wrong-foot itself with a sugar-consuming public that it sees as skittish over the issue of transgenic food.

That leaves Dr Peter Twine, R&D manager of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES), caught between two forces.

His Brisbane-based facility counts 25 biotech researchers among its 250 staffers and, as the research arm of the sugar industry, it has a long history of outstanding scientific work behind it.

It leads the world in gene gun transformation techniques in sugarcane, and is investigating genetic solutions for industry problems such as the cane grub, which costs the Australian sugar industry between $10 million and $20 million annually in losses and control input costs.

But as part of a food producing industry that is susceptible to public opinion, Twine feels compelled to stress that BSES currently has no transgenic crops in the field.

True, it recently filed its first application with the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator for a field trial. But even that application is a cautious compromise involving only the release of plants with a harmless marker gene.

Yet Twine is uncomfortably aware that Australia can't afford to drop too far off the pace being set by international rivals such as Brazil, whose sugarcane industry owns the IP rights to the sugarcane genome.

Field trials are looming as a bottleneck in the research process and "there is no prize for coming second," he says.

One broad avenue of promise is the use of sugarcane plants as bio-factories to express industrially-valuable products such as plastics.

Sugarcane has a number of characteristics that capture the interest of molecular farmers.

Its C4 bio-pathway (discovered in Brisbane by CSR researchers at what are now BSES facilities) makes sugarcane more efficient in converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into biomass than virtually any other commercial crop.

It is also nearly sterile, minimising concerns about contaminating the food chain with genetically modified varieties of cane.

The opportunity to diversify Australia's sugarcane industry into molecular farming is one of the drivers behind a Cooperative Research Centre funding application now being considered by the Federal government.

One aim will be to use sugarcane to derive products like biodegradable plastics, functional foods and pharmaceuticals. BSES is a participant in the consortium making the CRC application, along with three divisions of CSIRO and a number of universities.

It is seeking $4 million in taxpayer money to top up an $8-12 million investment that will come in from other sources, including a multinational chemical company, Twine says.

BSES regards the project as so promising that even if the CRC application fails, "we will endeavour to continue this line of research as far as our limited resources will allow," says Twine.