Nobel Laureate and Distinguished University professor in Northeastern’s College of Science, Sir Richard John Roberts speaks on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University
If the thought of genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs, brings to mind vague notions fraught with danger, Nobel laureate and Distinguished University Professor Sir Richard John Roberts would say you needn’t worry. In fact, he argued Thursday at Northeastern that the perceived dangers of GMOs are the result of something of a smear campaign by green parties that ultimately serve only to disenfranchise those in developing countries.
Roberts spoke to a standing-room only crowd during the latest installment of the “Beyond the Books” series, a program organized by Northeastern’s chapter of Delta Tau Delta to connect the campus community with opportunities to learn outside the classroom. Roberts and 120 other Nobel laureates have written an open letter to Greenpeace and every United Nations ambassador urging an acknowledgement that GMO technology is basically safe and should be supported for the sake of the developing world.
Genetic modification is not new
Humans have been farming for thousands of years, and it’s always been advantageous for farmers to cultivate the best, heartiest crops they can, Roberts said. Traditionally, farmers have cross-bred plant varieties with the goal of isolating, then magnifying the most desirable traits.
Take, for example, corn. If you want your corn to grow straight and produce large kernels, you’d cross-breed a variety that grows straight with a variety that produces large kernels—and keep doing that—until you get a single variety that does both.
“With this traditional way of breeding, you’re mixing two sets of DNA,” Roberts said. “You don’t exactly know what you’ve got at the end, but you can select for the things that grow the way you want them to grow. It’s considered perfectly safe because we’ve been doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years now.”–Molly Callahan for COS News
