Say CHEESE: The real GMO picture

I remember in college taking a food microbiology class.  How hard could a class about food be?   Food is not complicated is it?  Then we started learning all kinds of things about pH, fermentation, enzymes, bacteria, etc and how those things interact with food.   I quickly learned that food is complicated especially food that needs to go through a biological process before the final product is available.   A perfect example of a food like this is cheese!  Look at this process in the figure below.  I quickly realized that the science of cheese is not as straightforward as I first thought.

http://wiki.ubc.ca/File:Cheese-production.gif

For an introduction at cheese making, here is a great article:   http://www.cheesescience.net/2007/07/introduction-to-cheese-science_30.html .  The site summarizes very nicely in one sentence a very simple definition of the cheese making process. "Cheese manufacture, which dates from 6000-7000 BC, is essentially a method for preserving the nutritive value of milk through fermentation, removal of moisture and addition of salt."

I wanted to focus on one step of the cheese process:  the coagulation step.   Say what? Remember this nursery ryhyme growing up?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Miss_Muffet#/media/File:Little_Miss_Muffet_1_-_WW_Denslow_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_18546.jpg

Miss Muffet likes the results of coagulation.  The coagulation step is when the milk "clots."  You may have heard the same term referenced with blood.  When our blood clots it is coagulating.  Milk coagulation is when the the casein protein in milk is broken down so that the milk curdles.  The milk separates into solid curds and liquid whey just like like Miss Muffet likes.   Milk does not just spontaneously separate into curds and whey.  There are so many types of cheeses and thus there are multiple ways of making milk coagulate.  In many of the popular cheeses, including swiss, cheddar, and mozzarella an enzyme is added to the milk to start the breakdown of the casein protein, This special enzyme is called rennet.

http://slowfoodwellesleysnail.blogspot.com/2014/01/wasiks-cheese-lecture.html

Rennet is an important enzyme in the business of making cheese so where does it come from?   Nature first provided the answer.   Calves that drinks their mother's milk need to be able to break it down sand so baby calves produce the enzymes, ie rennet to break down the milk.  The enzyme occurs naturally in calves stomachs and cheese makers took advantage.   Rennet is harvested from a calf's fourth stomach, a process that involves killing the animal.  Harvesting the stomach is a by-product of the veil industry.  The rennet that is harvested from a calf's stomach is a mixture of chymosin, pepsin and other proteins.  Chymosin is the most important part of the rennet to coagulate milk.

The animal rights movement started to take off in the 1960s.  Due to that movement the rennet price became very unstable as there was a resistance to killing calves to harvest stomachs.  Whether you have a problem with the animal slaughter or not, the fact remains that getting the rennet from calf's was a laborious process and costly endeavor.  With pressure of animal right groups, cheese producers tried to find alternative way to obtain rennet.

Welcome to the world of GMO microbes.   Scientists discovered in the 1980s a way to genetically modify bacteria with one gene from the bovine genome to produce chymosin , the main milk caogulation factor found in rennet.    TheGMO microbes are grown in liquid culture and as they grow and express the bovine gene they release chymosin into the liquid culture.  The liquid is gathered and the chymosin is purified and then used to make cheese.   The purified chymosin is called FPC (Fermentation-produced chymosin)  and was approved by the FDA in 1990.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/25/us/gene-altered-item-approved-by-fda.html

Today, 90% of the cheese made in US use FPC.  Scientists now synthesize (or artificially make) the gene needed to make FPC without actually using DNA derived directly from the animal.   The use of GMOs to produce FPC is an important use of biotechnolgy in that it was used to solve a problem no matter where you stand on animal rights.   It is a cheaper solution that produces an even purer form of the enzyme needed to make cheese.

The GMO bacteria are releasing the enzyme and it is purified.  No actual GMO bacteria are put into the cheese and thus even if GMO labeling comes along cheese may not be on that list.   The cheese itself does not contain any genetically modified organisms, just the purified enzyme from a GMO.   In Vermont, a law is set to go active in July 2016 requiring GMO labeling of food in that state.  Guess what will not have a GMO label?  You guessed it.  Cheese will be exempt from that law.  Yet make no mistake GMOs are being used to help make certain types cheeses and it is a safe and cost effective solution.

So next time you eat cheese, think about the beneficial effects of GMOs.  The next time someonce says, "Say Cheese!" then share with them the real picture.   GMOs have been a part of cheese making since the 90s with nothing but positive results.   Eat some cheese and advocate for GMOs.  

Astrophotography: Iris Nebula

We just had Valentine's day and so I thought a fitting post would involve flowers.   There is a beautiful "flower" in space called the Iris nebula.   There are a different types of nebula with the most common being an emission nebula or a reflection nebula.   Both types of nebula involve dust and gas in space. An emission nebula is when energy from a nearby star ionize the gas usually resulting in a red color.   The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula.  A reflection nebula is when there is not enough energy from a nearby star to ionize the gas, but the energy is scattered through the dust.   When the energy is scattered it reflects off the dust and commonly causes a blue color.

A beautiful reflection nebula is the Iris nebula which reflects a beautiful blue color.  It is 1300 light years away and six light years across.

I took this photo with a Celetron Edge 8 HD and comprises about 1 hour of exposure. 

Zika Virus and Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

The Zika virus has been dominating the news lately and I am sure you may have already heard enough.  However there were a couple of topics I wanted to blog on this week.

1.  Some rumors are spreading on the internet (image that!) which actually say Genetically Modified (GM) mosquitoes caused the Zika Outbreak

2.  Secondly, should we be genetically modifying mosquitoes?  I have my own thoughts on this and wanted to pose a couple of questions before you answer that question for yourself. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito#/media/File:Aedes_aegypti.jpg

Genetically modified mosquitoes did not cause the outbreak!

We can start the story with a quick recap.  Zika is a virus spread by mosquito, specifically the Aedes aegypti mosquito.  The symptoms of the disease are quite mild.   You can develop a fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis that may last for 2-7 days.   In some cases someone with Zika virus may not even know they have it due to the mild symptoms. The virus was first identified in 1947, but it is now making headlines because of a very large outbreak in Brazil that started in 2015.  Since that outbreak, a large number of babies born with microcephaly has been on the rise.  Microcephaly is when the baby has a smaller than normal head due to incomplete brain development.  While an adult suffering from Zika is a non-issue, babies born with micorcephaly is a very large problemfor obvious reasons.  There is still no definitive science that has shown Zika is the cause of microcephaly, but the correlation is strong and the main assumption at this point.  Lots of research is going into this area and if you want more info on the ongoing science take a look at this scientific paper:  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6503e2.htm

The second part of the story is that there is a company called Oxitec that has genetically modified mosquitoes that they hope will help reduce dengue disease.  The mosquitoes being targeted are Aedes aegypti since they are the specis that carry dengue, but also happen to the the same species of mosquito that carry the Zika virus.  That is good news because the Oxitec technology could help with Zika.   Oxitec conducted a trial with these mosquitoes in 2011 in one Brazilian city and the trail was an overwhelming success.   The local population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were reduced 90%.  

The technology behind Oxitec's GM mosquitoes is very exciting.  I encourage you to go to their site and read about it.  Here is an excerpt from the site http://www.oxitec.com/ that really goes into detail on how the mosquito are made:  Keep in mind only the non-biting males are engineered.

Finally the two stories come together when social media decided to spread a rumor just likes its own virus.  Headlines, Facebook posts, and Twitter posts were ablaze with false information that the reason we have the Zika outbreak in Brazil is because of these GM mosquitoes.  

The claims are a complete joke, but you probably saw the headlines somewhere and our brains are quick to say "Hey that might make sense."  We really need to look at where the claims are coming from and the science to debunk it, something that requires extra work.  The rumor started because a Reddit post showed the outbreak location in Brazil was close to the Oxitec GM trials.  That post ballooned into GM mosquitoes caused the outbreak.  When we look at the facts the locations pinpointed are actually far away from the outbreak.  The other big debunking fact is that the Brazilian Zika outbreak occurred in 2015 and can be traced to other outbreaks, while the Oxitec trials were four years earlier.   For the detailed facts check out this article:  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/04/alert-theres-a-dangerous-new-viral-outbreak-zika-conspiracy-theories

Even Snopes, a site that facts checks rumors commented on this one:  http://www.snopes.com/zika-virus-gmo-mosquitoes/

http://www.snopes.com/zika-virus-gmo-mosquitoes/

The rumors once again make GM technology seem like an evil thing.  In this case the critics are spreading fear and that fear can spook regulators.  Regulation is supposed be science based, but that is not always the case.  Every delay is causing more Zika virus to spread and if it is truly causing microcephaly, then every delay is also causing human hardship even though we have the tools to fight. 

Should we even genetically modify mosquitoes?

Let's start with  the fact that  manipulating insects is not a new thought.  There is another insect called the screwworm (don't eat before Googling that one).  The screwworm fly lays eggs in a wound and the screwworm larvae hatch and "drill" down in the wound and eat the flesh.  Cattle are affected the most, but they can affect other animals.   The screwworm can of course cause death and was major problem in the Americas.   To gross you out more, the worms can affect humans as well.  The economic impact from cattle losses was so large that a facility in Panama was built to constantly rear screwworms flys, irradiate them to sterility and release them by airplane.  There are so many sterile flies that any normal female only meets a non-sterile fly and the population stays low.  This operation never stops and employs about 400 people with a budget of 14 million per year (2014 data).  That is very little money and resources compared to the billions of dollars in losses to farmers if the fly was still around.   So manipulating an insect is not a brand new though or technology.  We have been doing it since the 50s when the screwworm fly program was first started.

I know this can be an ethical question for some.  How could we eradicate a bug even if it is a mosquito.  What are the environmental impacts?  Don't worry about eradicating all mosquitoes with this technology.    There are 3500 species of mosquitoes and only a very small number of that transit disease to humans.   Any technology is going to be very targeted and only used to help people. 

The fact remains that we have a tool to save lives and reduce disease.  Before you make your final judgement run these scenarios in your head.

1.   There are no Zika carying mosquitoes around me.  Should we release genetically modified mosquitoes?

Now ask this one:

2.  My daughter is pregnant and my neighbor was just diagnosed with Zika virus.   Should we release genetically modified mosquitoes?

For me the answer is pretty straight forward.  I value human life and the science has shown that the technology is safe.  I am heartbroken from the images of crying moms in Brazil and ready to put science to work to solve some of our world problems.  Don't let good science and the potential to save lives be delayed because of something you have not verified on social media or word of mouth from a friend.