Scientists say they've managed to create genetically modified bacteria that are safer to use in industry since they would just die off if they escaped into the natural world.
Microorganisms that have been genetically engineered are widely used in the production of drugs or fuels in contained industrial processes, and researchers have been seeking ways to make them less likely to be an ecological hazard if they were to escape that containment.
The solution, researchers say, is to genetically modify them so that they can only exist on artificial nutrients, types of synthetic amino acids that simply don't occur in the natural world.
If such genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, escaped into the wild, they would simply starve and die, they say.
The research to this point has focused on bacteria, so the technique is a long way from possible use to create safer GMO plants or animals, but the work so far is "a compelling solution to biological containment," says Harvard Medical School professor of genetics George Church, a co-author of one of two studies recently published on such genetic modifications.
The work could lead to the re-engineering of the genetic code of other organisms, says Farren Isaacs of Yale University, an author of the second Nature study.
"What we're seeing here is an important proof of concept that re-coding genomes and engineering dependence on synthetic amino acids is technically feasible in not just E. coli but other micro-organisms and multicellular organisms such as plants," he says.
In addition to their use in the production of biofuels and drugs, GMOs can be used to remove pollutants in contaminated areas but require strict containment strategies to keep them from spreading into the wild.
That's what has driven the push to develop GMOs that simply cannot survive outside of their intended usage environment, in order to protect fragile natural ecosystems and allay public concerns about their use.
"On the tactical side, this is the first time that anybody had gotten an organism that can be very robust but nonetheless not escape from the laboratory," Church says of the current research.
Some experts said they had mixed feelings about how effective such a strategy could be, although they mostly approved of the research.
"But you can never remove all risk," says Julian Savulescu, an ethicist at the University of Oxford in Britain. "There is still the very small chance of some natural event enabling them to change so as to be able to survive in the wild."
