In the world of food technology, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which farmers have been using since 1996, will likely be supplanted by synthetic biology, according to NPR blog, The Salt.
Synthetic biology “is about designing and building workhorse organisms that can make things more efficiently than nature (or make things we might need that nature doesn’t make at all).” According to Todd Kuiken, a senior program associate with the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “It’s the next stage of genetic engineering.”
How are synbios different from GMOs? “Synbio involves taking genes from a plant and giving them to yeast to make the same compound the plant makes, but much more efficiently, via fermentation,” according to the blog. GMO seeds “typically contain genes from another organism that bestow a plant with a new defense mechanism.”
Synbio ingredients are already showing up in food on store shelves. For example, synbio vanilla, an alternative to artificial vanilla flavor, was rolled out in the United States this past summer, but International Flavors & Fragrances, the U.S. partner of a Swiss company Evolva that invented the technology, is not revealing which food companies are using the ingredient, according to the blog.
Other Evolva synbio products expected to go to market within two years include saffron, the antioxidant resveratrol and stevia, according to The Salt.
The advantage of synbio, according to Evolva, is they can be completely made in a lab, eliminating the need to plant and farm the products in fields, which are then subject to unpredictable weather conditions and require tending by laborers. Evolva wants to “make these expensive and scarce products more affordable” and available, Neil Goldsmith, CEO, told The Salt, adding that Evolva’s process is cost-effective and sustainable.
One advocacy group, Friends of the Earth, staunchly rejects claims that synbio ingredients and foods are “natural,” and is battling their use and lobbying regulatory bodies to require food labeling of synbio and GMO ingredients in foods.
Photo: Image of the campaign mounted by Freinds of the Earth to encourage ice cream manufacturers not to use synbio vanilla.
