The Hindu

This wheat, with one mutation in its genes, had its grain ear tightly covered with husk. It would not crack open by itself and when opened it fell flat on the spot, rather than be carried by the wind. This bread wheat thus needed an agent to intervene and open its ear so that it can be sown and spread.

"Man has a wheat that he lives by, but the wheat also thinks that man was made for it because only so can it be propagated ... the life of each, man and plant, depended on the other. It is a true fairy tale of genetics, as if the coming of civilization had been blessed in advance by the spirit of the abbot Gregor Mendel''.The above account illustrates the point that agriculture is a biotechnological consequence - albeit a natural consequence. As farming and agriculture grew, so did man's experiments with plants. Some of the earliest biotechnological experiments man did were with whole plants and plant products. Fermentation to produce cheese and curds, and to produce wines and beer were experiments done by him in the field or the hearth.

More daring were procedures of grafting branches of plants to produce newer varieties, the methods of selective breeding and production of hybrid seeds for greater productivity. These practices have led to food-sufficiency through green revolutions in many countries. It is not just in farming and agriculture where we see the heritage of biotechnology. As we experimented with plants and shrubs, so did we with cattle, poultry and fish.

Recall that the Vedic society was a pastoral one, which took pride in breeding choice cows, sheep and other animals. Kamadhenu (the wish-fulfilling cow) was as much a societal metaphor as a farmyard one, just as the Kalpa Taru. The horse was domesticated in the Ukraine-Central Asia region over 8000 years ago and spread from there to Mongolia on the one side, Arabia on the other and towards Europe on the third side.

Breeding of horses, particularly in Arab lands, was veritable high technology, which led to a significant number of thoroughbred races, each for a specialised use - in warfare, racing or for riding. India alone must have produced dozens of strains of milch cows and beasts of burden over the centuries. Sheep- raising was also raised to technology levels, with special breeds for wool, hide, meat and for sacrifice.

This excursion into history was to highlight the point that the biotechnology of earlier times did not derive from any fundamental knowledge gained ahead of time from cellular and molecular biology; rather it grew with empirical knowledge gained from experimentation with whole organisms (plants or animals) than with their parts, organs, cells or molecules, and through observations over several generations of the organisms. Results from these experiments led to our understanding the basic science behind them.

This has indeed been the general trend in the history of science, namely technology generating or leading to eventual understanding of the science behind. The concept of the gene arose from the garden technology of crossbreeding pea plants, the laws of thermodynamics from a study of friction and the attempt to build perpetual motion machines, and the laws of chemistry from alchemical practices. It is only in the last hundred years or so that science has started giving birth to technology and newer application of its laws and principles. Organismal biology, systematics and sciences such as botany, zoology and microbiology have been unified during the last several decadesinto biochemistry, molecular and cell biology and genetics. Working with tissues, cells and their molecules - notably proteins and nucleic acids - became possible.

During the last 25 years it has become possible to routinely identify genes responsible for special traits and phenotypic expression, isolate them and introduce them in cells and organisms which did not have them, so as to produce transgenic material (and conversely, to knock them out from a system in order to remove an undesirable trait). Biotechnology as a rigorous science and engineering practice has surged ahead in parallel to the new biology.

Even here one can make a distinction between 'gene biotechnology' and 'non-gene biotechnology' or 'whole system biotechnology'. In the latter, one works with whole cells, tissues or even individual plants, animals or microbes. By its very nature this turns out to be somewhat more convenient to practise even by non-experts and at levels of technology and sophistication that are rather immediately transmittable on a large scale and over a wide area.

It is well to recall here that the whole enterprise of the green revolution, the production of high-yielding hybrid plants, indeed all the advances made in agriculture the world over until recently, and the white revolution in dairy products, poultry science and hatcheries, sericulture, floriculture and in veterinary science have come through system biotechnology or non-gene biotechnology.

The sustained advances made over the years in the various agricultural universities of our country - Coimbatore, Rajendranagar, Pantnagar, Pusa, Hissar, Karnal, to name a random few - have come through this approach. In the fashion of the times where it is more glamorous to talk about transgenics, cutting and pasting genes, cloning and expression, knockouts and the like, we tend to think of the work done in these institutions as classical and un-modern; our own colleagues in these places who do some fine work tend to be reticent and even apologetic. This attitude is unjustified and uncalled for. These farm scientists are the Cinderellas of biotechnology, patient and productive; let us praise them and offer them pride of place.

Biotechnology burst forth in India about 15 years ago in a big way, thanks to the concerted effort from the Department of Science and Technology, the newly opened Department of Biotechnology, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and private entrepreneurs. While activity is seen in all areas and aspects of biotechnology, the most widespread practice are those of hybrid seed production and plant tissue culture.

While hybrid seed production and sales have been successful for over 30 years (eg. Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co., or Mahyco) the technology of plant micropropagation is about a decade old. The latter enterprise is sort of homecoming, since the technologies of another culture or callus culture, and of protoplast fusion - two basic methods that have made plant tissue culture possible - originated in Delhi University about 35 years ago, thanks to the research initiatives of Satish Maheshwari, Indra Vasil, B.M. Johri, H.Y. Mohan Ram and their associates.

Many companies, big and small, have been successful in such plant propagation efforts and have made their mark and money in floriculture, cacti and succulents, spices and seasoning shrubs, fruits such as the mango, sugarcane and cotton. The methods of embryo transfer and cell fusion have also been used to advantage by Indian plant breeders. The IARI at New Delhi has produced and improved a somoclone variation of mustard by tissue culture. Called BIO-902, this somoclone is reported to have consistently out-yielded the parent variety Aruna. Likewise, a dwarf somoclone variety of rice called Basmati-370 has been reported. The Sugarcane Research Institute at Coimbatore is reported to have developed a new variety of sugarcane using this technique.

Before we leave this aspect of 'bulk' or 'non-gene' biotechnology practices, it is important to reiterate the noteworthy advances made in the field of generating vigorous hybrid seeds of food grains. The successes that India has had with rice, wheat, pulses and soya bean hybrids have been well recognised.

Thanks to the introduction of hybrid seeds in staple crops, food production in India has jumped from 50 million tonnes (MT) a year in 1950 to about 200 MT each year during the last several years. (It is estimated that during last kharif season, India produced about 74 MT of rice, 25 MT of coarse cereals, 4.8 MT of pulses, and 140 lakh tonnes of oilseeds).

Food production has kept up with, indeed taken over, the rate of population growth; as a result India has attained self-sufficiency and more in food. Could there be a more striking example of the use of biotechnology for the public good?

Yet there are sobering questions that experts like Dr. M.S. Swaminathan have been posing, namely whether the production cannot be raised to 300 MT per year. With proper planning of the sowing, harvesting and storage sectors, it should be possible to significantly improve the yield even if the acreage of cultivation does not increase. The development of newer and more robust varieties of hybrid seeds would be of help in attaining this goal. It is here that special mention must be made of the efforts of TNAU, APAU, IARI and other organisations. Also notable are the efforts of Dr. E.A. Siddique of Hyderabad in developing commercially exploitable new vigorous hybrids of rice combining the advantagesof Indica and Japonica, namely the ability to grow in diverse conditions of sunlight and varying loads of water, the grain size and cooking quality; this promises to increase production targets, taking advantage of the higher yield potential of these hybrids.

Turning to gene-based agricultural biotechnology, Indians have caught up in some areas with the world. Perhaps as many as six laboratories in various parts of India are engineering the pesticide from Bacillus thuringiensis or BT into a variety of plants, using recombinant DNA technology. It is to be noted that BT-engineered plants are already available elsewhere on a commercial basis. Efforts in India have focused on comparing the relative efficacies of the toxin genes derived from a variety of bacilli such as thuringiensis, sphaericus, and kurstaki.

Multinational biotechnology companies such Monsanto have already brought into the Indian fields genetically engineered seeds, where the transgeneic element added is a pest-resistant factor. Boll-free cotton and Round-up soya are two examples. Likewise, the efforts of Chinese and American groups in having genetically modified rice to enable it to fight the redstripe virus are encouraging.

Efforts have also gone on in India in the transgenic direction. Dr. Asis Datta at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, has been able to introduce the genes that enhance the production of the essential amino acid lysine into model amaranthus plants, a welcome step towards improving the nutritional quality of edible plants.

His group has also been able to genetically engineer a high-oxalate-containing plant with the gene for oxalate decarboxylase so as to modulate the oxalate content in the plant, a step towards reducing the risk of kidney stone formation caused by oxalate intake in the food.

There has been some concerted activity in the country to attempt and produce transgenic fish, involving groups from the CCMB, Hyderabad, Madurai Kamaraj University and the fisheries development group at Allahabad. Sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, this aims to farm fatter fish through growth hormone gene in fish such catfish, murrel, katla and rohu. The success rate so far has been low. Barring this national effort, much of current aquaculture biotechnology has been restricted to shrimp farming on a commercial basis. There have been two kinds of concerns about this enterprise. The first is from the industry itself, and has to do with a virus that seems to have devastated a large fraction of the produce. To the extent this type of problems will keep occurring, help from virologists and molecular biologists in handling and eradication these pathogens will be important.

The second and larger problem is environmental in nature. Chunks on the peninsular coast of India have been taken over, sometimes land under grain cultivation, and the areas have turned brackish. The classic tussle is on between environmental wisdom and commercial concerns, and we hope that it will be resolved in favour of sustainable development.

A notable antiviral advance has recently been made by Professor M.S. Shaila of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, not in aquaculture but in veterinary health. Rinderpest is a major affliction that takes the toll of many cattle heads in the country. Using genetic engineering methods, she has been able to develop an effective rinderpest vaccine, which is currently being promoted for marketing. Availability of this indigenous vaccine on a wide basis should be a boon to veterinary practice and the cattle industry.

Finally, during discussions on biotechnology inputs that have improved agriculture, an occasional remark is made that no cereal or food grain is yet to be made using transgenic technology. The focus in such a statement is on rice, wheat or coarse grain cereals. I believe this is a restrictive view, limited to the process of isolating and transferring a chosen gene into a host. If we enlarge the view of biotechnology to include non-gene aspects and whole-organism manipulations, the benefits of biotechnology inputs to agriculture and veterinary and poultry practices stand out.

(Extracted from the Jannareddy Venkata Reddy Memorial Lecture for the year 1998, of the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad).

D. Balasubramanian
Director of Research
Hyderabad Eye Research Foundation
L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad 500 034