Genetically Modified Allergy Prevention

[CBL4]

A hypoallergenic grass genetically modified to lack two common hay-fever allergens is set to enter field trials in the US. ... developed several strains of ryegrass in which one or both of the two main pollen allergens are reduced by up to 50 per cent,
...
Another possible stumbling block for the hypoallergenic ryegrass is the lack of incentive for farmers. To remedy this, Spangenberg's team has also developed a GM ryegrass that is more digestible than normal.

It contains modified lignin, which stiffens plant cell walls, and more of the highly digestible energy source fructan than regular grass, enabling cows to produce up to 25 per cent more milk from the same amount of fodder.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993843

As a allergy sufferer who used to live in the grass seed capital of the world (the southern Willamette Valley in Oregon), I can think of no greater scientific advancement. It would have saved me two months of misery.


CBL

 

[Hellbound]

Yeah, it'd be great until that GM grass mutates out of control and eats your children!!!!!!



Just kidding

There's an application of GM I'd have never thought about, though. If they can do it with trees I'm all for it (the tree pollen seasona are when mine act up).

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Kind of seems like they are doing it backwards to common sense. Why not find the gene(s) involved with allergies and use a retro virus to splice in the fixing gene? Now you are cured no matter where you go.

 

[Rolfe]

And if you can figure out how to do that to a grown adult mammal, effectively and with minimal risk, your Nobel Prize awaits!

Practicalities considered, getting rid of the allergens in new grass seeds is a good idea. Even if it was only sold as lawn seed, it would have its points. An allergic individual might well be able to sit and play on a lawn sown from that seed.

Rolfe.

 

[roger]

Practicalities considered, getting rid of the allergens in new grass seeds is a good idea. Even if it was only sold as lawn seed, it would have its points. An allergic individual might well be able to sit and play on a lawn sown from that seed.

This confuses me. Aren't lawns mowed regularly enough that the grass never flowers and produces pollen anyway?

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

And if you can figure out how to do that to a grown adult mammal, effectively and with minimal risk, your Nobel Prize awaits!

You have heard of retro virus vectors haven't you? There are already people who were "bubble boys" that have had the gene that fixes them inserted into all their cells via the above mentioned vector and now have working immune systems. If you need more info I could find the page in my one year old Biology book. I say again, GE can now be done on adult organisms.

 

[Rolfe]

You have heard of retro virus vectors haven't you? There are already people who were "bubble boys" that have had the gene that fixes them inserted into all their cells via the above mentioned vector and now have working immune systems. If you need more info I could find the page in my one year old Biology book. I say again, GE can now be done on adult organisms.

There are still only a very few such cases. The procedure is still experimental, and if I recall correctly after one very successful case, others have been less so. It's also extremely expensive. It's a high-tech and high-powered effort to help an extremely severe clinical condition, whose very severity warrants the taking of risks.

It seems to me that it will be a long time before such a radical and resources-heavy procedure is considered suitable to treat something as trivial as hay fever.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

This confuses me. Aren't lawns mowed regularly enough that the grass never flowers and produces pollen anyway?

If you make the effort! But lawns do tend to flower a bit, and if mowing isn't very frequent there can be enough pollen there to cause trouble.

I don't have hay fever, but that's what I gather from friends who have. I certainly get the impression that they'd be quite keen on the idea of a hypo-allergenic lawn.

Rolfe.

 

[Benguin]

I think rapeseed is the one a lot of us would like to see the back of .... I'm sure that's a prime candidate for GM anyway given the way it is produced.

 

[Hellbound]

Ragweed is a common one, too, but they'd have to get it spread in the wild. I'm not sure how effective this would be in reducing allergens from wild-type plants. Even the trees I mentioned earlier could be a problem.

 

[CBL4]

This confuses me. Aren't lawns mowed regularly enough that the grass never flowers and produces pollen anyway?

In the Willamette Valley, farmers grow the grass for the seed and therefore the pollen must occur. It is the nastiest case of pollution that I have ever been subject to but since it was "natural" (e.g. a natural pollutant grown in a very unnatural manner), no seemed to object.

CBL