IEEE Spectrum June, 2013 - 50

The age of plenty

"but thanks to today's genetic technologies, we can explore
the potential of the species."
No company is better positioned for that exploration than BGI,
which has leveraged the Chinese government's financial support
to grow into one of the world's biggest genomics companies in
less than 15 years. BGI specializes in sequencing whole genomes-
the entire complement of genetic material that makes up the DNA
of a species. Its research facilities are packed with dozens of high-
tech sequencing machines, and more than 800 employees work
to analyze the resulting data with the latest bioinformatics soft-
ware. BGI collaborates with institutions around the world, bring-
ing its sequencing firepower to bear on the genomes of microbes,
plants, animals, and humans.
BGI is just one of many companies interested in plumbing the
genomes of the world's crops to launch another green revolu-
tion, this one enabled by a level of precision engineering and
automation that agricultural research has never enjoyed before.
As institutions like BGI create a deluge of genetic data, seed com-
panies are using that information to quickly design new super-
crops. Together they're changing assumptions about how much
food farmers can grow and where they can grow it.

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"Golden Grains of Discord"]. But as
the tools of genetic engineering get
more sophisticated, it's becoming
less clear how to define what a GM
crop is and whether it requires scru-
tiny and regulation. In this article
we'll describe how computers and
robots are advancing those tools and
leave questions about the appro-
priate level of regulation to others.
The threat of provoking controversy has kept BGI from experi-
menting with the types of GM crops most likely to raise objections-
those that mix genes between species. The company's researchers
sometimes use transgenic techniques to take a gene of interest
from one plant and move it to another of the same species, which
allows them to check whether the gene really causes the effect they
greater grain?
chinese genetics
company bgi used
industrial gene
sequencing and
bioinformatics to
breed a high-yield
variety of foxtail
millet, a longignored grain.

BGi

iT a ll sTa rT s w iTh The sa me m aTer i a l. w he Ther r ese a rchers a r e
studying millet, mouse, or man, the genetic instructions they
seek to decipher are coded in a long molecule called DNA. The
code consists of a sequence of chemical bases, which come in
four flavors: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine, abbrevi-
ated as A, T, C, and G. The whole long series of letters is known
as the genome. Specific pieces of the genome-certain strings of
letters-are the genes, which carry the important instructions
about how to make proteins.
Genome sequencing is the process of decoding these vast
sequences of letters. In agricultural research, that information
helps botanists add certain desirable traits to a plant by care-
fully controlling its genetics, either by traditional crossbreeding
methods or by inserting genes directly into the genome. When
researchers use the latter method to move genes around, the
resultant "transgenic" crop is considered a genetically modified
(GM) organism, and controversy ensues.
Critics of GM foods have questioned their effect on human health,
the environment, and the economic well-being of farmers. The nay-
sayers worry primarily about crops that include genes taken from
another species entirely, saying that scientists can't predict all the
consequences of such meddling. Activists have used guerrilla tactics
to make their displeasure known, sometimes making midnight raids
on field trials of GM crops to uproot and trample the "Frankenfood"
plants. Even the most humanitarian efforts to increase crops' nutri-
tional benefits have met with impassioned resistance [see sidebar,
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2013
