Arabidopsis thaliana, the plant that the Glowing Plant Project seeks to light upWIKIMEDIA, SUI-SETZThe Glowing Plant Project, which has raised more than $450,000 from nearly 8,000 backers on the crowd-funding website www.kickstarter.com, promises to send donors seeds, for laboratory workhorse Arabidopsis thaliana and roses, that are engineered to carry firefly genes that will cause the plants to emit a faint blue-green glow. But the project is sowing more than glowing plant seeds. It’s reigniting a debate over responsible uses of synthetic biology and the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.
Objections to genetic modification typically emerge over the topic of GM crop plants or livestock. But the Glowing Plant Project has raised concerns from anti-GM activists and industry watchdogs alike. The ETC Group, an environmental organization that opposes all GM organisms, has even tried to launch its own campaign to stop the Kickstarter project.
“We are extremely concerned that the USDA is not planning to regulate the first-ever field release of an organism engineered through synthetic biology technologies. . . . We urge the USDA to put a halt to this risky, unregulated pursuit,” the groups wrote in a letter to the US Department of Agriculture in April.
In fact, the Silicone Valley entrepreneurs behind the Glowing Plant Project have satisfied the USDA’s existing regulations ...
