Molecular farming company Moolec has inserted pig genes into soy beans to generate meaty-tasting proteins that can be grown in plants.

I’m naturally quite cautious about things like this, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

  • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    it’s an interesting idea, and in exploring it we would certainly learn new things

    In June 2023, Moolec revealed that it had inserted genes from pigs into soy plants in order to make soybeans that expressed porcine proteins. The experiments were carried out at the company’s greenhouses in Wisconsin. In some of the soybeans, over a quarter of the soluble proteins were identified as pig. It’s not quite the bleeding soybean that he first imagined, but Palidini was still impressed with just how much pig protein his soybeans seemed to produce. The beans have a pinky hue and a meaty taste, he says, though the company is still awaiting a full analysis of their nutritional qualities. Next year, Paladini hopes to take the soybeans to outdoor field trials in Wisconsin.

    but this is not the way to do it

    • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      9 months ago

      I’m just assuming you’re concerned about cross-pollination. From my understanding as long as adequate buffer zones between similar crops are followed there’s very little to worry about. Like stories about farmers getting sued for having their fields pollinated with GM variants were bogus and the farmer everyone usually sites was found to just be replanting GM seed.

      • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        There’s still the risk of people spreading it. Sortta like espionage vineyard grafts of heirloom grapes or something. This kinda thing worries me, in this case I don’t think there’s such thing as too much precaution.

        • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          I’m not really sure what you mean by spreading it, like some bad actors are going to porkify the soy industry through guerilla farming? The challenge of gathering and preserving that much seed aside, for commercial farmers who grow GM crops it’s very finicky to get those beneficial traits to be expressed through each subsequent generation through traditional breeding.

      • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Adequate buffer zones won’t be 100% implemented, though. Nobody’s going to make them do that worldwide.

        Would be better to introduce genetic incompatibilities so that GMOs were infertile with non-GMOs.

        • Aryuproudomenowdaddy [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Would be better to introduce genetic incompatibilities so that GMOs were infertile with non-GMOs.

          I guess if that was your goal they would probably have to insert a novel gene that wouldn’t be present in say, the over 10,000 different varieties of conventionally bred tomatoes and then engineer the plant to produce sterile seeds, but that seems like a much more concerning trait to let out into the wild than beans expressing umami flavor. Terminator seed technology has been around for a while but as far as I know there have been no commercial applications because it worries a lot of different groups.