Eating the frankenfish?

Genetically-modified organisms (GMO) have always been a very controversial issue in science. Although GM food may have its benefits to increase efficiency and improve food quality, ethical and social issues have always been sources of concern about these GMOs. This week’s post will be dedicated to our lovely GM salmon, invented by our very own NUS professor Hew Choy Leong! 

GM Salmon, originating from the Atlantic salmon, has 2 DNA sequences modified (a promoter of an anti-freeze gene from an ocean pout, and a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon), hence it is able to grow all year round, about 5 times faster than its wild type counterparts! The significance of this GM salmon is that since it is able to grow much faster, it can be harvested in a shorter time and increase the profits earned. This could also be an affordable protein source that could potentially feed starving nations, by lowering seafood prices, and curbing the problem of overfishing. Aqua Bounty Technologies, a US company that produced this transgenic salmon, finally received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, FDA, after about 2 decades, making this the first GM animal to be sold commercially for human consumption! However, even though FDA’s findings showed no significant environmental and health issues, some major store chains refused to sell the GM salmon as they doubt that the public would purchase and consume these ‘artificially altered’ salmon.

Environmental groups lobbied about the possible threats that GM salmon may bring, which includes upsetting the balance of the ecosystem, and causing a loss in biodiversity. Since GMOs are better able to withstand environmental stress compared to other organisms, they may affect the food chain if they are introduced into the ecosystem. Studies showed that in the same tank, wild salmon, in the company of GM salmon, experienced reduced growth and is outcompeted by GM salmon. Furthermore, GM salmon also exhibited cannibalistic behavior towards their wild type counterparts. Hence, the introduction of GM salmon into the wild may drastically reduce the population of wild salmon, greatly reducing the genetic variation in salmon population; and may introduce genes from ocean pout into the salmon gene pool. To minimize risks in ecological disruptions, GM salmon are reared in land-based tanks, and they are born as sterile females so that they are unable to reproduce even if they managed to escape.

Although GM salmon was invented by a Singaporean, it is not approved by the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore, hence it cannot be found in Singapore. Compared to conventional Atlantic salmon, transgenic salmon was found to taste just as good, and it even won out over Canadian and Chilean salmon varieties in blind taste tests. With food shortage being one of the world’s most pressing issues, will GM food help to solve this problem? Well, personally, I feel that with the population boom, GM food could be one potential solution to feed our nations as long as it is under strict controls to not let these GM animals escape into the wild.

References

Lijie, Huang. "The Gm Salmon Inventor." The Straits Times, 2010.

Sentenac, Hannah. "Gmo Salmon May Soon Hit Food Stores, but Will Anyone Buy It?" Fox News, 2014.

Van Eenennaam, A, and P Olin. "Careful Risk Assessment Needed to Evaluate Transgenic Fish." California Agriculture 60, no. 3 (2006): 126-31.

Van Eenennaam, Alison L, and William M Muir. "Transgenic Salmon: A Final Leap to the Grocery Shelf?". Nature biotechnology 29, no. 8 (2011): 706.