Science Facts & Fallacies

Congenital eye disorders can rob children of their eyesight at a young age and severely diminish their quality of life as they grow up. Over 60 percent of cases of blindness among infants are caused by such inherited conditions, and for many years, there was little modern medicine could do. But that's beginning to change as the gene-editing revolution advances, enabling physicians to replace and modify the damaged DNA responsible for these disorders.

In early March, researchers for the first time ever treated a patient born with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a rare genetic condition that causes severe visual impairment, using CRISPR. To administer the therapy, scientists inject a harmless virus carrying the instructions to produce CRISPR-Cas9 directly into the patient’s eye, where it is expected to edit out a mutation in the CEP290 gene responsible for the most common subtype of LCA known as Type 10.

Although a gene therapy for a different LCA subtype has been approved by the FDA, the recent effort to correct the mutation in CEP290, if successful, will offer the first treatment for LCA10. The gene-editing procedure also marks the first attempt to edit DNA inside a living patient, signaling a significant step forward in biomedicine.

The groundbreaking treatment raises all sorts of questions, most pressing among them: is the procedure safe, and will it really restore sight? On this episode of Science Facts and Fallacies, geneticist Kevin Folta and GLP editor Cameron English sit down with Dr. Mark Pennesi, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Oregon Health and Science University, to get some answers. Pennesi is one of several specialists conducting the BRILLIANCE clinical trial to evaluate the novel CRISPR therapy for LCA10.

Mark Pennesi is a professor of ophthalmology at Oregon Health and Science University who specializes in degenerative retinal disorders. He completed a combined M.D./Ph.D. at Baylor College of Medicine. Visit his website

Kevin M. Folta is a professor in the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida. Follow Professor Folta on Twitter @kevinfolta

Cameron J. English is the GLP’s senior agricultural genetics and special projects editor. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @camjenglish

 

Scientists have halted bacterial evolution, helping to preserve the efficacy of life-saving antibiotics. Biosimilar medicines could cut US health care spending by $54 billion. Consumers will eat gene-edited food if they understand its benefits to humans, animals and the environment. And plants can be engineered to detect flu viruses and other harmful substance—including explosives used in bombs. On this episode of the Science Facts and Fallacies podcast, geneticist Kevin Folta and GLP editor Cameron English bring you the latest stories from the world of genetics and biotechnology.

Battling antibiotic resistance by stopping evolution

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose an increasingly deadly threat to public health. These so-called "superbugs" infect more than three million people and kill thousands annually. While scientists rush to develop novel drugs to battle these stubborn microbes, one research group has devised a clever approach to preventing harmful bacteria from acquiring resistance in the first place.

Viewpoint: Embracing biosimilars will drive down prices, increase access to drugs

Biologics, medicines derived from living organisms, allow doctors to treat and prevent once-incurable diseases. While the technology represents a massive step forward for modern medicine, these treatments are often prohibitively expensive, which limits the positive impact they can have. Biosimilars, drugs with similar composition and function to brand-name biologics, are poised to expand access for millions of people and cut drug spending in the US by $54 billion. Will corporate intellectual property battles, disinformation campaigns and physician ignorance halt this positive development?

Shoppers will buy gene-edited food if they know its consumer, animal and environmental benefits

According to a new survey, most US consumers don't know what gene-edited food is—but they're convinced it's bad. This skepticism fades away, however, after shoppers are educated about the health, animal welfare and environmental benefits of agricultural gene editing. These results suggest science educators need to spend less time on the technical details of CRISPR and more time communicating the tangible benefits that gene editing offers.

Synthetic biosensors: Engineered plants could detect flu viruses and crop pests before they become global problems

As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread across the globe, our inability to rapidly detect the novel coronavirus has made it difficult to properly combat COVID-19, the resulting respiratory disease that has infected almost 200,000 people and killed nearly 8,000 as of March 17.  What if biotech plants could spot harmful viruses before they cause pandemics? It may sound like science fiction, but researchers are turning genetically engineered plants into biosensors capable of detecting diseases, plant pests and even bombs.

Kevin M.

For the first time ever, CRISPR has been used to edit DNA inside a living human being. Scientists have also tapped the gene-editing tool to accelerate DNA sequencing in hopes of customizing cancer treatments. Plant-based burger startup Beyond Meat blasts critics who claim its products are 'ultra-processed.' Genetic engineering may save the world's favorite banana from extinction. But how does the public feel about all this genetic tinkering?

On this episode of Science Facts & Fallacies, plant geneticist Kevin Folta and GLP editor Cameron English go beyond the headlines to break down the latest developments from the world of genetics and biotechnology.

Can CRISPR gene editing save the Cavendish banana from extinction?

The Cavendish banana—that delicious, yellow tropical fruit currently populating the produce sections of our grocery stores—may not be available for much longer. A fungal disease known as Tropical Race 4 (TR-4) is wreaking havoc on banana plantations across South America, threatening to wipe out the Cavendish for good. TR-4 spreads rapidly and isn't easily controlled with pesticide applications. That's why scientists are working feverishly to immunize the banana by cutting a segment of DNA out of its genome that makes it susceptible to TR-4.

Credit: Steve Hopson

More precise cancer treatments may be possible by pairing CRISPR with genetic sequencing

Researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have used CRISPR to rapidly sequence particular genes involved in the development of breast cancer, eliminating the DNA replication process usually required for genome sequencing. The development could enable the selection of customized cancer drugs that treat the disease based on the genetic makeup of individual patients.

Beyond Meat goes ‘on the offensive,’ blasting critics who claim plant-based burgers are ultra-processed

Plant-based burgers have been a hit with consumers so far, achieving nearly a $1 billion in sales in 2019. This development has made the meat industry nervous, and they've launched expensive marketing campaigns to dissuade the public from chowing down on the beef-free alternatives. The industry's biggest criticism: plant-based meats are "ultra-processed," and presumably less nutritious than traditional burgers.

Beyond Meat, maker of the wildly popular Beyond Burger, is having none of this. The company announced in early March it was going "on the offensive" to counter the marketing assault on its products, arguing that plant-based foods may actually be healthier than meat in some cases.

Targeting blindness with CRISPR: Doctors attempt first editing of genes inside a human body

Gene editing has yielded dozens of important medical treatments for deadly diseases,...

Doing good science is hard. Effectively communicating that science to the public might be even harder. Nobody knows this better than Paul Offit. An accomplished academic researcher and pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Offit has forged a second career for himself as an influential and capable spokesman for scientific thinking, probably best known for taking the anti-vaccine movement to task for spreading dangerous falsehoods about immunization.

His 10 books,  countless op-eds and appearances on high-profile TV shows like the Colbert Report have earned him a lot of enemies in the "natural" health movement, who angrily refer to him as Paul "for profit" Offit. Interestingly, many of these critics (most notably Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), have spun similar conspiracies about scientists who develop biotech crops, alleging they are shills for Monsanto. Researchers on the receiving end of such vitriol are typically targeted because they've stymied activist efforts to challenge the scientific consensus on vaccination, biotechnology, alternative medicine or some other controversial topic.

But Offit didn't start out as a giant thorn in the side of the anti-vaccine movement. Over the course of many years and failed attempts to engage the public–sometimes on live radio and TV–the pediatrician honed his ability to distill dense medical research into five-minute sound bites that resonate with an audience of parents, many of whom have been badly misinformed about the risks of vaccines.

On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, Offit joins GLP editor Cameron English to discuss his "hard-earned wisdom on the do’s and don’ts of battling misinformation," important lessons he details in his most recent book Bad Advice Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information. Although public relations wasn't initially a comfortable fit, Offit explains why he nonetheless stepped into the public square to take on celebrities, politicians and activists who peddle disinformation—and how others can learn from his experience.

Paul Offit is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter @DrPaulOffit

Cameron J. English is the GLP’s senior agricultural genetics and special projects editor. He is a science writer and podcast host. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @camjenglish

Bad scientific research is everywhere. There are junk studies suggesting that the same foods cause and prevent cancer, Darwinian evolution is false and, most infamously, vaccines are linked to autism. Such low-quality studies are frequently retracted by the journals that publish them, but most research found in reputable science journals still turns out to be wrong.  These studies are typically evaluated by independent scientists to make sure the results are valid, a process known as peer review, so we're prompted to ask an obvious question: how do we end up with so much questionable, exaggerated and even fraudulent data?

Well, peer review–though a necessary part of the publishing process–isn't always the powerful junk science filter it was designed to be. As cancer epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat pointed out in a recent story for the Genetic Literacy Project:

Epidemiologists, statisticians, and other health researchers need to publish in order to advance in their careers. But, the public and journalists – the consumers of information about health – need to be aware of something that researchers know well – there is no paper that is so dreadful that it cannot be published somewhere.

There are several important reasons "dreadful" research gets published, Kabat says. Sometimes reviewers aren't experts on the studies they're assigned to evaluate. In other instances, the authors of a new study get to select who reviews their paper, encouraging them to pick scientists who will green light the research for publication. But these are just two examples of the biases that can cripple the peer-review process. As the authors of an August 2019 article explained:

Bias may relate not only to author characteristics such as geography, nationality, language, specialty, gender and affiliation or prestige but also reviewer characteristics, such as preferences for type of content (e.g., by topic), type of study (e.g., bias against observational work), bias for or against interdisciplinary research, confirmation bias (i.e., tendency to endorse work in line with one’s own beliefs) and publication bias (i.e., a well-documented trend for trials with negative results to not be published and, correspondingly, for trials with positive results to be published).

This isn't just an academic issue. Bad research can put people's lives at risk, so addressing problems with peer review is essential. On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, Kabat joins GLP editor Cameron English to offer an inside look at peer review and answer two important questions: Can peer review be fixed, and in the meantime, how can average people learn to spot bad science when it hits the headlines?

Geoffrey Kabat is an epidemiologist, the author of over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and, most recently, of the book Gettin...

Cancer is a devastating disease. It kills more than half a million people annually and we spend nearly $150 billion each year on cancer care. The situation is made worse by the fact that therapies designed to treat the disease often attack patients' healthy cells along with the targeted tumor cells. This problem has hindered cancer drug development for decades, but it also dampens the efficacy of groundbreaking therapies like CAR-T products, which involve genetically engineering a patient's T-cells to attack the disease.

While these treatments have proved to be quite effective against lymphoma and leukemia, with up to 80 percent of cancer patients responding, they're still a work in progress. As SynBioBeta pointed out in April 2019:

For years, patients and doctors alike have begged for and predicted our exit from the so-called stone age of cancer treatment. With the advent of alternative therapies like chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies, we are moving closer to such a future.

CAR-T .... “primes” the patient’s immune system — T cells, specifically — to better recognize and target cancerous cells .... One of the biggest issues with this approach, however, is that the targeted antigen is also expressed by non-cancerous cells. Like chemotherapy and radiation, current CAR-T therapies often kill healthy cells along with cancerous ones.

Tim Lu

The solution, of course, is to develop more targeted cell-based treatments that eliminate tumors without otherwise harming the patient, and scientists are harnessing synthetic biology to produce this sort of highly specialized therapy. Senti Biosciences CEO and founder Dr. Tim Lu says synthetic gene circuits, biological constructs that direct cells to perform certain functions, are key to taking this next step in cancer treatment. Using gene circuits, Lu says, scientists can engineer cancer treatments that discriminate between tumor cells and healthy cells, and even counteract a tumor's attempt to suppress the treatment. The company has conducted pre-clinical experiments showing that its gene circuit technology could effectively treat ovarian cancer and other solid tumors.

But a number of critical challenges have to be addressed before such a therapy reaches the clinic. Will it work outside the lab? And are doctors and regulators at the FDA on board? On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, Lu talks to GLP editor Cameron English about Senti's progress toward "outsmarting complex diseases with more intelligent medicines."

Tim Lu is the CEO of Senti Biosciences and an associate professor at MIT. He received his MD/PhD from MIT and Harvard. Follow Senti on Twitter @SentiBio

Cameron J. English is the GLP’s special projects editor. He is a science writer and podcast host. Follow him on Twitter @camjenglish

Looking at the massive selection of goods available in US grocery stores, most consumers likely don't realize just how hard it is to sustainably produce an abundant supply of food. Arguably the biggest challenge facing farmers and scientists in their effort to feed a growing global population is plant disease, which destroys 15 percent of all food grown globally, a loss of roughly $220 billion annually, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Most of us know very little about plant pathogens, but as the American Society for Agronomy points out, we're all familiar with how they work and at least one example of how deadly they can be:

Just like human beings, plants get sick. Microorganisms such as fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses and nematodes (tiny worm like organisms) can infect their plant hosts, with deadly consequences .... Diseases that affect our global food supply .... can have tremendous consequences for food security. One of the most famous examples in history is the Irish Potato Famine. A disease called Late Blight devastated potato crops in the 19th century. This resulted in mass starvation and emigration from Ireland.

Diana Horvath

The problem today is so severe that in 2014 alone, for example, farmers spent $14 billion dollars on pesticides to protect their crops, but with only partial success. Diseases like wheat stem rust can cut crop yields by as much as 70 percent, jeopardizing the food security of people all around the world, and others such as citrus canker threaten to grind Florida's $9 billion citrus industry to a halt.

While these numbers are startling, the problem is solvable. That's where scientists like Diana Horvath come in. A trained molecular biologist, Horvath heads up the 2Blades foundation, an Illinois-based research nonprofit working with leading scientists to develop crops that can withstand the withering effects of dozens of plant diseases. The ultimate goal, 2Blades says, is to get "healthier plants into the hands of farmers all over the world."

On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, Horvath joins GLP's Cameron English to discuss the global food security threat we face and the important work 2Blades is doing to neutralize it.

Diana Horvath is president and director of the 2Blades Foundation. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Northwestern University. Visit 2Blades online and follow them on Twitter @2Blades

Cameron J. English is the GLP’s senior agricultural genetics and special projects editor. He is a science writer and podcast host. Follow him on Twitter @camjenglish

Here's a question for you: what if there were dangerous toxins that could make their way into your food, but they don’t actually pose a risk because our food system keeps the threat in check? Would you want to know more about this?

I’m talking here about a real thing—something that could be seriously scary, but which fortunately isn’t among the problems we face, at least in the “rich world.” The toxic chemicals I’m talking about are called mycotoxins. These are natural chemicals that can form in various foods when those foods are infected with certain fungi or molds. This sort of infection often happens because a crop is damaged by insects, but there are some cases where the infection can happen without those sorts of injuries.

So, how are you and I protected from this dangerous side of nature? Well, as is often the case with pest-related challenges, what really helps is to have a diverse set of tactics—what we might call “Food Safety Ninja Strategies.”

Maize cob colonized by Aspergillus species, aflatoxin in Senegal. Photo by Joseph Atehnkeng/IITA.

In many cases the key “bad guys” are insects, because the damage they cause through their feeding opens the door to infection by the mycotoxin-producing molds. Particularly with corn and tree nuts, there are caterpillars who chomp away at the developing ears of corn or the hulls of the nuts.  A similar thing can happen with fruits like apples when insect feeding leads to growth of a Penicillium mold that makes a different mycotoxin called patulin. Patulin isn’t as scary as aflatoxin, but still something to be avoided if possible.

In an earlier POPagriculture episode titled “There’s More Than One Way to Kill a Bug,” I talked about how farmers deal with insects using insecticides, biocontrol agents, natural enemies of the bugs, and with chemicals that repel, disorient, or otherwise confuse the bugs. Those are all good options for our “food-supply-protecting ninjas.” In the case of field corn, the genetically engineered hybrids that produce the safe and selective Bt protein suffer much less insect damage, and thus the risk from mycotoxins, like aflatoxin, or another nasty one called Fumonisin, is drastically reduced.

Full show transcript available here.

Steve Savage is a plant pathologist and senior contributor to the GLP. Follow him on Twitter @grapedoc. The Pop Agriculture podcast is available for listening or subscription on iTunes and Google Podcasts.

If there's one point almost everyone agrees on, it's that cutting chemical use in agriculture is a worthwhile goal. Genetically engineered crops have helped farmers worldwide drastically reduce pesticide use, but biotechnology remains contentious. Many consumers are fearful that "playing god" with our food will yield potentially serious consequences for the environment and human health. This has stifled many attempts to develop new biotech crops that could further cut pesticide use.

While the GMO controversy rages, a handful of companies are taking another innovative approach to crop protection. Instead of engineering pest-resistant plants, they're developing products known as biologicals—natural compounds that protect crops but don't harm beneficial insects or threaten human health. These products have been available for decades, but technological improvements have made them more effective in recent years and their popularity is growing as a result.

Ontario-based Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT) is taking the growth of biologicals one step further by recruiting bees to spread a natural fungus that controls pests and aids plant growth as they pollinate crops. The company says this substance:

.... is an organic strain of a natural occurring endophytic fungus – which means it is a plant living within another plant. Commonly found in a large diversity of plants and soils all around the world, BVT’s selected strain of fungus grows harmlessly in the inside of plant tissue .... It does not cause disease or substances toxic to plant tissue. Bees and plants are well accustomed to this kind of fungus and it is harmless to humans.

BVT CEO Ashish Malik

This EPA-approved pest control system offers a number of benefits, the company says. It boosts the crop's natural defenses and controls a variety of serious diseases, while increasing nutrient uptake—resulting in healthier plants that produce higher yields of better quality fruits and vegetables. Perhaps most importantly, this bee-based delivery system may prove more effective than pesticide sprays, because it ensures a wider and more consistent application of the active ingredient. As a result, BVT projects its approach could reduce pesticide use by 50-75 percent.

On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, BVT CEO Ashish Malik joins GLP editor Cameron English to discuss the company's novel pest-control tool and field questions about its future. While the company acknowledges its system is not a silver bullet, several studies published over the past decade and extensive data evaluated by the EPA have led experts to the conclusion that bee vectoring could play a major role in sustainable pest management systems.

Are you a fan of the long-term sci-fi comedy Doctor Who? It's the bizarre but entertaining story of an extraterrestrial being called “The Doctor” who keeps showing up to protect the human race as well as other races on other planets. This hero can do that because he has the ability to travel through space and time in a ship called the Tardis. From the outside it looks like a classic, blue, British Police Phone Box, but fancifully, the Tardis is bigger on the inside.

Imagine if the Daleks of Dr. Who successfully completed their mission to exterminate all humans! This running feature is one of many pop culture examples of battles between humans and some type of alien invader. On this episode of Biotech Facts and Fallacies, Steve discusses the extermination of some alien invaders who were threatening the grape industries of California.

Image: Jim G, via Wikimedia Commons)

The drama for our story began in the summer of 2009 in a famous, premium wine grape-growing region called the Napa Valley. One of the growers there spotted a caterpillar munching away on some of his grapes. Now there are several kinds of moths that can be pests of California grapes, particularly during their larval stage as caterpillars. But the grower noticed that this one didn’t look like those familiar types.

It turned out that was a new kind of moth to California—an alien invader! Ok, not a space alien, but scary from the perspective of grape farmers. It was called the European Grapevine Moth or “EVGM.” As its name implies it has been a pest on that continent for a long time. That name doesn’t sound scary enough for our story so lets use the scientific name, Lobesia botrana.

Now of course there wasn’t an extraterrestrial “Doctor” to lead this campaign, but even Dr. Who drafts a team of regular humans to help defeat the aliens. In this case the team comprised representatives of the grower communities, university experts and government employees from the relevant state and federal departments. They held an emergency meeting and decided that they wanted to see if they could come up with a way to not only stop the spread of the pest, but if at all possible to completely eradicate it from California. Eradicate! Doesn’t sound quite as harsh as “exterminate!” but it’s essentially the same idea.

Full show transcript available here.

Steve Savage is a plant pathologist and senior contributor to the GLP. Follow him on Twitter @grapedoc. The Pop Agriculture podcast is available for listening or subscription on iTunes and Google Podcasts.