Milling & Baking News - November 21, 2017 - 34

Industry Activities

Bioengineered wheat challenges
great despite research progress
DANA POINT, CALIF. - "Everything that my lab has produced is down in the basement."
That is how Peggy G. Lemaux, Ph.D., described decades of
work on agricultural biotechnology and genetic editing produced by Dr. Lemaux and her colleagues in the Plant & Microbiology department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Throughout her presentation in the general session of the
2017 North American Millers' Association's Annual Meeting at the Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, she cited
costs related to government regulation and intellectual
property issues as contributing factors to why the commercialization of genetically modified wheat has languished.
While the majority of the United States' canola, soybean,
corn and sugar beet acreage is bioengineered, the same
cannot be said for bioengineered wheat, which has yet
to be commercialized. Consumer concerns are part of the
challenge, but several other issues have held back wheat's
progress in this area, Dr. Lemaux said.
In 2014, 16 U.S., Canadian and Australian agricultural
organizations endorsed the development of biotech wheat,
noting their belief that wheat was at a competitive disadvantage to the other major crops. Farmers have moved to use
bioengineered crops because they see benefits. According to
a 2014 poll, the primary reason farmers plant bioengineered
crops is to increase yield, but they also do so to reduce the

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34 / November 21, 2017

Milling & Baking News

use of pesticide and to save time. Dr. Lemaux noted that 75%
of processed food has bioengineered ingredients.
Scientists have been able to develop a number of promising wheat varieties using traditional genetic modification and gene editing. The scientists have been able to improve photosynthesis efficiency in wheat plants, nitrogen

'We can show our research
works, like with preharvest sprouting and
hypoallergenic wheat, but
we can't take it anywhere
unless a company wants to
partner with us.'
- Peggy G. Lemaux, Ph.D.,
University of California, Berkeley

fix wheat to reduce the use of fertilizers and even develop
wheat bread for those with celiac disease.
Another problem potentially overcome thanks to academic research is pre-harvest sprouting, which occurs
when wheat close to harvest becomes moist.
"By down regulating a single gene you could prevent
pre-emergent sprouting," Dr. Lemaux said. "Not only that,
we get about 12% increase in yield so it's like, that's a nobrainer that you can get higher yield and you prevent preharvest sprouting."
In 2012, a Berkeley researcher discovered a way to relatively easily alter any organisms' DNA, just as a computer
user can edit a word in a document. The Crispr-Cas 9 genome editing technology is being used by researchers, but
until recently no companies had licensed it in part because
of intellectual property concerns.
"The companies come to us and say, 'Oh, can we use that
in our little wheat plant that we want to do?'" Dr. Lemaux
said. "They can't be sure if we develop something in my lab
through genome editing that they're actually going to be
able to get it out commercially in part because of licensing."
Dr. Lemaux and her colleagues have made some breakthroughs in genome editing that are not regulated by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture as bioengineered organisms. However, the U.S.D.A., the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency all play
roles in the regulation of bioengineered crops and foods.
The U.S.D.A. assesses whether the technology could be a
plant pest, while the F.D.A. analyzes the potential danger to
humans, and the E.P.A. assesses risks to the environment.
The process is costly.
"We can show our research works, like with pre-harvest
sprouting and hypoallergenic wheat, but we can't take it anywhere unless a company wants to partner with us," Dr. Lemaux said. "And often times the company will not want to
partner with us, because U.C. Berkeley has patent rights to
that, and they have to negotiate with the university. And, they
don't want to do that. They'd rather just do it themselves.
"When I am feeling really optimistic, I say, 'Maybe gene
editing will make it easier and cheaper,' but it's going to
depend in large part on how it's regulated, because it costs
a lot to take it through regulation." MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

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Milling & Baking News - November 21, 2017

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