The genetics and developmental biology underlying these
possibilities have already assumed a suitably futuristic
name-"genomics"— and one of the new science's foremost
practitioners is professor Bob Goldberg of UCLA's Department
of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. The research
of Goldberg and his colleagues may one day help feed the
entire planet. "I'd say about 30 percent of agricultural crops
are genetically engineered now," says Goldberg. "Within 10
years, it will be 100 percent. Plant gene hunters and
engineers are working on products that will have an impact 10,
15 years from now."
very story of scientific discovery deserves one great
image: Brother Mendel poised over his bean sprouts, Barbara
McClintock browsing her piebald cornstalks. The image
for Goldberg hangs right on his office wall: It is a dark
form, evocative as any Goya, of what could be a pair of
blunt butterfly wings, black against a black background,
and fringed with quicksilver flecks. In reality, it is
an enlarged cross-section of the tobacco plant anther,
the stemlike male sex organ in the plant. The flecks are
mRNAmolecules which have just been synthesized. It is
an image encapsulating the very essence of plant life.
"When I saw the picture, I knew I had something," smiles
Goldberg. "I'd never seen anything like it before."
Nor had anyone else. What Goldberg, who had been studying
plant genes since the 1970s, had found was a set of tobacco
genes that switched on at the same time and in the same cell
type during the development of male sex organs. These cell
types are critical for the production of pollen, which
contains the plants' sperm cells. Soon afterward, Goldberg
presented this discovery at a conference in Ghent, Belgium.
"Later, a man approached, very excited, and said, 'that
specificity is incredible,'" recalls Goldberg. "Next thing I
know, we're walking down the street to my favorite candy store
in Ghent and he says, 'Perhaps we could form a collaboration
and use your genes to make male-sterile individuals in a very
clever way.' " Goldberg's interlocutor was Jan Leemans, the
manager of research and development of the ag-biotech company
called Plant Genetics Systems (PGS). In seed-bearing crops
such as corn, wheat and rice, each flower contains both male
and female sex organs, the anther and pistil, and these plants
can pollinate themselves. That is not good news for farmers:
The result is fields of hopelessly inbred grain, crops that
are not only physically fragile but also nutritionally anemic
compared to the best hybrids, which contain the best genes
from the two inbred varieties.
