NPR: Talk Of The Nation

But first, what some are calling a major breakthrough in agricultural technology. According to the US Department of Agriculture, every year about 25 million acres of farmland worldwide is lost because the soil becomes too salty for plants to grow. It's a huge problem in many parts of the world, including here in the US, and now researchers working at the University of California and the University of Toronto say they have genetically engineered a tomato plant so that it will grow in salty soil. The plant can even be watered with saltwater. Now joining me to talk about this new plant is Dr. Eduardo Blumwald, professor of cell biology in the Department of Pomology in the University of California-Davis. He joins us by phone from his office.

Thanks for being with us, Dr. Blumwald.

Dr. EDUARDO BLUMWALD (University of California-Davis): Oh, thank you.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Is this true? Why--you have a tomato plant that grows in salty--salt conditions in the soil?

Dr. BLUMWALD: You bet.

FLATOW: How well does it grow?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Well, you can grow this plant at the same height and the same number of fruits and the same quality of the fruits as normal plants, when you water them with the equivalent of 40 percent of seawater.

FLATOW: Huh. Now what have you been able to do to this tomato plant that makes it so able to grow in salty soil?

Dr. BLUMWALD: What we have done is--essentially, it's common sense. Any plant that has to grow in such adverse conditions faces two problems. The first is that sodium is very toxic for the metabolism of the cell. Sodium will inhibit key reactions, killing plant cells. The other problem is that due to the high osmoticum outside, the high sodium chloride concentrations, the plant cannot take water. In fact, the plant is going to lose water.

So what we have done is instructed the plant through genetic modification to produce more of a plant protein--this is not a fish protein, just is a protein from the plant--that now is going to make the sodium ions that enter the plant's cell go into an organelle that the plant cell has, called a vacuum. By doing that, which is by accumulating the sodium in this vacuum inside the plant cells, we accomplish two things. First of all, we are removing the sodium from the other part of the cells, which are critical for the metabolic reactions of the cell. And second, now, that pool of sodium starts sucking water literally from the soil to the plant. So the plant now can use the salty water to grow.

FLATOW: So the plant is genetically engineered to take the salty part of the water and store it in the leaves, let's say, so it doesn't get into the tomato fruit itself.

Dr. BLUMWALD: But that is a consequence. The water that goes into the fruits, or into the seeds, or into the grains, depending on the plant, is water that comes from inside the cells through cell-to-cell communication. If we manage now to filter the sodium out of that liquid in the site of the cells, now the water that goes to the fruits have very little sodium. And, in fact, our tomatoes have very little sodium, although the plant is full of sodium.

FLATOW: So you took a gene from the Aridopsis plant, which is a mustard plant, correct?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Yeah. Yeah.

FLATOW: And the mustard plant had tolerance for the salt?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Not so much tolerance. We show two years ago--actually, we published that in Science in 1999, that in order to that little plant to be tolerant to salt, you have to make that plant overexpress its own gene. You need more of that protein.

FLATOW: Right.

Dr. BLUMWALD: The only reason that we use the gene in Aridopsis was for lack of funding, really, because we know that tomato has genes which are incredibly similar--93 percent identical than the one in Aridopsis. And in fact, many plants have the same gene.

FLATOW: They have this gene that would override the saltwater problem.

Dr. BLUMWALD: In a way, yes. The only problem is that for some reason that we don't know and we are now trying to investigate why those genes are not highly expressed, actually through a grant of the National Science Foundation to understand why this protein is not highly expressed in most of the crops.

FLATOW: So the trick here is if you could get that gene to be expressed in other crops, then these other crops might also be salt-tolerant.

Dr. BLUMWALD: I can tell you already that yes, because we have now other coral-growth plants that show similar resistance to salt. For example, we now engineer canola that produce oil seeds to grow in 40 percent seawater, and we can tell you already that the number of seeds per plant is exactly the same when it grows in 200 milliwater(ph) sodium chloride or in no sodium and the quality of the oil is the same.

FLATOW: So how many other plants do you think might work this way also?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Oh, if we can get the proper funding, we can transform every single plant, every single important crop.

FLATOW: You're saying that all the important crops--wheat, oats, barley, rye--those crops like that--corn, maybe--that they have a gene in them that will express the protein if it's, let's say, stimulated enough, and then that they might grow in salty environment?

Dr. BLUMWALD: I cannot tell you if all those plants have the same similar gene, but I can tell you, yes, that we could engineer those plants using plant genes to grow in salty water. Yes.

FLATOW: How would you overcome the resistance that people have to genetically modified plants and foods this way?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Listen, I would tell these people, `Let's be realistic and let's apply common sense.' I can understand the activism very much at the multinational companies and their right to know, and I am an advocate of the right of people to know what is in the foods. So I sympathize totally with them in that aspect. But well, let's make a simple mathematical equation. We are six billion people, and in 30 years from now, there are going to be nine billion people, so we are going to increase our population 50 percent. Now if--in your own introduction, you point out that we are losing land constantly to this problem of salinity, and there's no solution to that. So a simple math equation tells you that unless we do something, we are in very deep problems. Conventional breeding has been tried for almost 100 years or more, and there are very, very little results. So in my opinion, this is the only common sense solution.

FLATOW: You know, in effect, actually, the proteins, the genes that make this protein are already in the plants, are they not? We're already eating those genes. You're just strengthening the...

Dr. BLUMWALD: Absolutely. You know, you are not going to die because you're eating it. I will tell you something--another simple math equation. If I just take in consideration how many people have died in the last 20, 30 years because of famine, because of drought and stress-induced famine in the world, I will need at least seven zeros after the digit. But if I have to count how many people die because consuming a genetic engineered food, sorry, there is no reported case. Zero. So, you know, you have to be realistic. This is the only reality. We are going to lose the soil and we have to do something.

FLATOW: Is the answer--is the tomato plant the ideal plant that you want to grow? Is that going to help these...

Dr. BLUMWALD: No, no, no. I did a tomato plant because, you know, the tomato is a very good model plant. The transformation methodology is very well established.

FLATOW: Right.

Dr. BLUMWALD: The plant grows fast, has a fruit that you can easily evaluate. But, obviously, we have to target wheat, and we have to target rice, and we have to target corn, and we have to target essentially every single fruit and nut and grain there is on the planet. But we should maybe prioritize which ones we are going to do a lot. Essentially and practically, this work in tomato plants show that you can do it in every single plant.

FLATOW: And you're saying, as you said before then, the limiting factor is the research money you have to go...

Dr. BLUMWALD: Absolutely. Absolutely. And now, you know, maybe the main problem that we face in the university--we are researchers. You know, I'm a professor of cell biology. I'm not a politician. And I have to be above this political problem in what the sense providing a benefit for humanity. If we had the research sources and the university researchers would have enough funding, there will be no controversy between the research done in the university and then with the nationals and their influence.

FLATOW: Could you use this plant to make salty soil clean again, if this plant soaks up the salt?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Ah, bingo. Bingo. You--right--right question. Yes, yes and yes. In fact, we have data now that shows that if you will grow, for example, canola--we did it in canola, which is a very tall plant, can reach two meters, 20 centimeters, large leaves--we are absorbing from the soil 12 grams of sodium per plant. This could have an incredible benefit in bioremediation.

FLATOW: So you can not only harvest the canola, but you could desalinate the soil.

Dr. BLUMWALD: Absolutely. You can have sustained agriculture in a very compromised land, and yet reduce the salinity problem in the region.

FLATOW: So how far away are we from possibly seeing one of your plants or maybe the tomato plant first being planted widely outside of your laboratory?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Well, your question is a little bit difficult to answer because it's going to depend on, first of all, enough funding to do the research in the field and try to now adapt the particular plant to the particular constraints in the field. We have not done that yet. Then the regulatory issues. Then the technology that you need to use to do those plants and make them accessible to everybody which is depending on technology which has been patented and owned by those multinationals. So I would say that there will be a lot of wheeling and dealing here in order to get plants going on.

FLATOW: Well, who owns this technology? You don't own this technology here?

Dr. BLUMWALD: I can give you names, but they're irrelevant.

FLATOW: No, but it's...

Dr. BLUMWALD: Don't get me in trouble. There are companies that are fighting among themselves to who own the particular vector and so on, so on, so, you know, I want to be away from that. That's not my function.

FLATOW: And is there any fear that if a plant, you know, like this gets in the wild it could spread, you know, its salinity properties to other plants?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Salinity properties--on the contrary.

FLATOW: It's anti-salinity. I'm sorry. Anti...

Dr. BLUMWALD: That is what you want.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. BLUMWALD: I invite all the activism to go and read my paper. In my paper I show that the transgenic plant growing in no salt is even performing better. The fruits have more potassium, more protein, equal amount of sugars. There's no problem with that. You know, I agree that we have to attack problems where they are, but we should not invent problems where they are not.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Any chance you'll get past the tomato, closer toward the other plants you want to do in the near future?

Dr. BLUMWALD: Can you repeat the question?

FLATOW: When do you move on to the next plant besides the tomato? You said the canola plant...

Dr. BLUMWALD: Well, the canola is--we have recently submitted the paper for publication where we show these results, and the--of course, 50 percent of my time is writing grants in order to get money to do the work. So I cannot do it without money for salaries for the students, and postdoctoral fellows and chemicals, but we are ready.

FLATOW: All right. Well, good luck to you.

Dr. BLUMWALD: Oh, thank you.

FLATOW: Maybe a few people who are listening today will have a few bucks in their foundations or something.

Dr. BLUMWALD: Oh, tell them to send it to me.

FLATOW: All right. Thank you very much. Dr. Blumwald.

Dr. BLUMWALD: Bye-bye.