27/2/2001

Farfalle Terminator fluorescenti

Some researchers, critics alarmed by plans for what farmers call the "Terminator"

by Philip Brasher

Associated press writer

WASHINGTON- By tinkering with genes, scientists have made tomatoes that stay fresher longer, crops that are immune to weedkillers, and fish that grow faster. Now, a genetically engineered insect is emerging from the lab. The first field trial of a biotech insect - a pink bollworm moth that contains a jellyfish gene - is planned for this summer. The gene gives the moth larvae a fluorescence. If the experiment involving a major pest for cotton growers goes as planned, scientists are ready with their next step: testing a biotech version, called the "Terminator" by farmers, that is sterile, but secually active; it is designed to mate with wild relatives and eliminate their offspring. Some 3,600 moths with the jellyfish genes are to be set free under screened cages in a government owned cotton field near Phoenix. The next step would be to add genes that make the moths sterile. "We're being very, very careful about what we're doing," said Robert Staten, an Agriculture Department scientist who will run the field trial. The experiment is being conducted and regulated by depeartment's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service because of its authority for controlling plant pests. Staten expects the agency to grant approval this spring for the release. "We're going to take as conservative an approach as we can and still move forward," he said. Some biotech critics are alarmed while some scientists who support the technology say the government is not prepared to properly regulate biotech insects. Under development, for example, are disease-preventing mosquitos that could deliver vaccines to the people they bite or carry their own antiboties. "When you are talking about insects you're talking about promiscuous organisms that will mutate and breed quite uncontrollably," says Charles Margulis, an anti-biotech activist with the environmental group Greenpeace. He said there is no guarantee that an insect designed to be sterile will turn out that way. The pink bollworm infects about 500,000 acres of cotton in the Southwest.