As scientists and biomedical researchers race to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus using genetically engineered proteins and other technologies, this came in from reader Steve Clark in Monterey, Calif.:
“I’m a GMO (genetically modified organism). Several years ago I felt several bumps on my head which turned out to be active melanoma tumors. My doctors sent me in for scans and located additional tumors in my lungs. The prognosis was stage four malignant cancer. They prescribed a clinical trial involving a genetically modified virus called T-Vec.
“Having spent years teaching biology, chemistry and genetics, I asked for an explanation. Simply, it involved a herpes virus that had been genetically modified; the genes that cause cold sores were removed and replaced with a gene that causes the virus to replicate inside malignant melanoma cells. Then a second gene that stimulated the production of T-cells (the body’s fighters) was inserted.
“These modified viruses were injected into the tumors on my scalp. They reproduced until the cancer cells burst and released hundreds of new viruses that entered and destroyed other malignant cells. When the cancer cells broke open, their toxins were recognized by T-cells, which also replicated. So I had both cancer killing viruses and cancer-fighting cells in my body. The tumors on my head went down quickly. Months later, the tumors in my lungs shrank and disappeared.
“In a college biochemistry class in the 1960s, I had learned about a new molecule called DNA. Weeks later, I tried to describe this genetic material to family friends who are apple farmers. Their response was to reward me with a project: bud grafting tiny apple trees. This involved lying flat on the ground to cut the bark of pencil thin ‘trees’ that had excellent roots and then inserting a new bud from the desired apple trees. (The tough part was wrapping and tying the two together with rubber band fragments!) The result was a tree with strong roots and excellent fruit. Not genetic engineering but combining two plants to produce quality apples.
“Now I’m putting peanut butter on apple wedges from a non-browning Arctic apple. In these apples, the gene that causes browning is blocked. They are an example of the new GMOs that are designed with the consumer in mind.
“Many of the original genetically-modified plants were designed to benefit farmers. Now we are getting new genetically enhanced products into grocery stores that will reveal the positive aspects of GMOs to consumers. Potatoes that don’t bruise, cooking oils with higher amounts of omega-3s, gluten-free wheat, rice and bananas that produce high amounts of Vitamin A to prevent childhood blindness, increased antioxidants in fruits, fresh papaya resistant to the deadly ring spot virus, and my non-browning Arctic apples are good examples.
“Whether in cancer cells or apples, genetically modified organisms are improving lives. I’m happy to be a living GMO.”
Thanks for your letter, Steve.
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(Barbara Quinn is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator affiliated with Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. She is the author of “Quinn-Essential Nutrition” (Westbow Press, 2015). Email her at to barbara@quinnessentialnutrition.com.)
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