Pest CRC moves to Qld as southern GM bans bite

Queensland's biotechnology industry is beginning to capitalise on southern discomfort over genetically modified (GM) organisms, with the Cooperative Research Centre for Pest Animal Control (CRC-PAC) shifting its research team from Gungahlin, in Canberra, to the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland.

The CRC has also abandoned plans to conduct the world's first field trial of its radical new technique to sterilise mammalian pests with GM viruses in Victoria.

In landmark experiments in the late 1990s, the centre's scientists confirmed that the technique, known as virally vectored immunosterilisation, can induce 100 per cent sterility in female mice.

The engineered virus contains a recombinant mouse gene for one of the ZP (zona pellucida) proteins that form the jelly-like coating around mammalian ova. When the virus infects a female mouse, it induces an antibody attack on the zona pellucida that also destroys her egg.

The first contained field trial of a GM virus developed to control mouse plagues in the Australian wheat belt is now likely to be conducted in the Darling Downs agricultural region, west of Toowoomba, instead of near Walpeup, in the Victorian Mallee, and another site in Victoria's Wimmera district.

Director Dr Tony Peacock said the CRC's decisions were directly related to the climate of uncertainty created by the moratoriums imposed by all the southern state governments on new GM crops.

"We won't be trialling in the Mallee or the Wimmera," he said. "While there's no ban on field trials in Victoria, we wouldn't want to go right through this research project only to receive a 'no'.

"Our board says we must be ready to field-trial [the mouse virus] within five years, but we're hoping to do it in three."

The first contained field trial was originally planned to be conducted in special escape-proof pens at Walpeup this year, but in September last year, the CRC announced it was postponing its application to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR). The CRC's spin-off company, PestStat, had requested that researchers develop a more infectious strain of the mouse virus, to ensure it would disseminate effectively under field conditions.

The original strain of mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) had become attenuated during the years when it was being developed and tested on laboratory mice. It had been selected for its ability to replicate under laboratory conditions, rather than for effective transmission from infected to healthy mice in the wild.

A new, more infectious strain has now been engineered, but the project has been further delayed by a request from the OGTR, assuring it that insects will not accidentally spread the virus from the containment site to wild mouse populations.

Peaock said the OGTR's request reflected the public concerns that accompanied the accidental escape of rabbit calicivirus -- a non-GM virus -- from a contained field trial on South Australia's Wardang Island in 1996. The virus, apparently carried to the mainland by flies, devastated rabbit populations in the semi-arid and arid zones.

Accidental, insect-vectored spread of the genetically modified mouse virus is very unlikely, according to Peacock, because MCMV spreads via physical contact between mice, and is not blood-borne. Like most herpes viruses, it is specialised for infecting nerve cells. "Trying to identify a potential insect vector for the virus is very difficult, because you're trying to prove a negative," Peacock said.

The centre's researchers are testing mosquitoes and stickfast fleas to see if the virus can survive in the insects after they have fed on mouse blood.

Migrating north

Peacock said the shift would involve researchers and their families, provided they were prepared to move from Canberra to Queensland. CSIRO accepted an offer of laboratory space in the Institute of Molecular Bioscience's $60 million research centre on the UQ campus when it was being built.

Peacock said he had great respect for Queensland premier Peter Beattie's support for biotechnology research, and his efforts to establish Queensland as Australia's leading biotechnology state. He also praised efforts made by UQ vice-chancellor, Prof John Hay, to attract the CRC research team to Brisbane.

The university had offered nine containment pens for the mouse-virus field trial at its field station at Gatton, 45 minutes west of Brisbane, where there would have been only six pens available at Walpeup. The Gatton facilities would allow a cereal crop to be planted in the pens, to create a more realistic environment for the trial.

Peacock said the CRC had very strong prospects for having its Commonwealth funding renewed this year under the CRC grants scheme. "We'll be right near the top for industry funding," he said. "By July 1 next year well be at least a $94 million enterprise, with around $23 million in industry cash."

He said that, beyond its next seven-year funding round, the CRC aimed to become a national agency, comparable to Animal Health Australia, and Plant Health Australia, marketing its advanced recombinant-DNA and conventional technologies and products for vertebrate pest control to an international clientele.