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It was fortunate for farmers, as well. Scientists at PGSimmediately applied the results of this research to canola, which had no previous hybrids. Eventually, these genetically engineered plants pushed up canola yields by 15 percent, transforming Plant Genetics Systems into the world's most important producer of canola seeds. PGS quickly expanded the cash crop. In pilot programs all over the world, the male-fertility control system has been applied to corn and other crops. Corn growers spend $250 million a year emasculating their crops. That figure is estimated soon to drop significantly. And hybrid wheat and rice crops are just around the corner.
Goldberg's team is creating a "lab without walls," as he calls it: Researchers share theories, grad students, postdocs, data, funding, results and publication. Each group approaches the problem from a different tack. At Davis, John Harada is focusing on the genetic switches that operate immediately after fertilization. At UCLA, Goldberg and his students are investigating the genetic switches that control development of the suspensor, a nutrient sac that forms from the bottom of the egg and enriches the growing seedling. All the investigators on the project share the conviction that their basic research will have a practical payoff in short order. The researchers' insights into how roots develop, for example, will guide scientists in the effort to engineer crops to grow in tougher soil. A better understanding of leaf formation will suggest new uses for leaves, perhaps as sources of oils and nutrients. New data on seed generation will allow scientists to engineer for bigger seeds, and more of them. "Eventually," says Goldberg, "we'd like to be able to make a seed from scratch." In fact, the UC genomics collaboration has turned up one remarkable finding already. In 1991, Goldberg, Harada, Berkeley's Bob Fischer, as well as every student and postdoc they could round up, traveled to a University of Arizona lab, headed by Ken Feldmann, to sort through thousands of seeds of the model plant arabidopsis, looking for mutations—sure signs of flawed genes. It is painstaking work: One by one, the fruits must be sliced open, the seeds inspected and, then, if problems are detected, placed under a microscope to determine exactly when and where the mutation occurred. It's the kind of large-scale survey no single lab could |
have performed alone. But the effort was quickly rewarded when all the slicing and squinting turned up numerous mutants. One mutant in particular, uncovered by Marilyn West, a postdoc in Harada's lab, affected several stages of seed development and is linked to a particular gene called "LEC1." Seed Institute researchers in Harada's lab isolated the LEC1 gene and activated the gene in Arabidopsis—well before it was generating seeds. The growing plants looked bizarre—indeed, fragile, stunted, oddly shaped. "The word is embryonic," says Goldberg. In a paper published in the prestigious journal Cell, Seed Institute scientists showed that LEC1 turns any leaf cell into an embryo cell that develops into a seed. "This tells us that this gene must be a kind of master regulator, that it must work very early in development, maybe just after fertilization, before cells have differentiated," notes Goldberg. "And that LEC1 can switch the developmental programs of cells to a seed-producing pathway. If we can do that, we can, say, make leaves which have seed oils and proteins—and increase harvests of those products." Now imagine something grander still: that this "Super Race" of agricultural products can clone itself. No crossbreeding required—no breeding, period. "This is like finding the Holy Grail," says Goldberg. "We already know that some plants can create a seed without fertilization. If we could get these engineered crops to reproduce themselves, then you wouldn't have to worry about crossing for hybrids or buying hybrid seeds every year. You'd buy the super seeds and the crop would perpetuate itself." To help make that happen, Goldberg, along with Walter DeLogi, former CEOof PGS, and Ned Olivier, of Oxford Biosciences Capital Group, founded an L.A.-based plant genomics company, Ceres, Inc., named after the goddess of agriculture. One of the fledgling company's missions is simply to work with the researchers to develop commercially viable products. Not surprisingly, Goldberg has big hopes for the endeavor. "I'd like to make the Seed Institute the most important plant genomics company in the world," he says. "a research organization that breaks down walls in academia and in industry to make gene discoveries now that will lead to superplants in 2010. After all, the ultimate goal of this research is to make new products for the developed world, and eventually go to the developing world where we can truly make a difference."
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his model of the problem-solving collaboration animates Goldberg's most ambitious project to date. Launched in 1990 as the Embryo 21st Century Project—now called the Seed Institute—it joins laboratories at UCLA with UC campuses in Berkeley, Davis and Santa Cruz, and the University of Utah in a collective investigation of the genetics of seed development. It is a huge undertaking—to identify all the genes necessary to make a seed—and it puts the University of California in a formidable position vis-à-vis similar large-scale efforts at Cold Spring Harbor, Texas A&M and other research institutions in Europe and Australia.
