Highlights 2000-2001

• TGERC staff receive a four-year grant of nearly $600,000 from the Agenda 2020 program, administered by the United States Department of Energy, to continue major studies on the engineering of reproductive sterility. These funds will allow our multi-pronged research program on sterility to continue for several years, through to establishment of field verification trials, ultimately providing key data for industry, regulators, and the public about the effectiveness of sterility as an environmental mitigation strategy.

 

• Transgenic studies with floral homeotic genes demonstrate the potential for altering gender in poplars. This finding indicates that transgene expression might be useful for producing certain kinds of hybrid crosses, and allowing selfing to occur during research and breeding programs.

 

• Transgenic trees in several of our multi-year field trials continue to demonstrate high levels of health, yield, and stability in transgene expression. These studies inspire confidence that selecting commercially viable and stable transgenic lines with desirable traits can be readily achieved using routine gene-transfer methods.

 

• Computer simulations demonstrate a key role for fertility control, and tolerance for incomplete sterility, in reducing the extent of transgene spread. Studies modeled on a test landscape similar to those found in the Pacific Northwest, and based on TGERC studies of gene flow in wild and planted populations, show that even incomplete sterility can provide a high level of biological safety with transgenes that impart a selective advantage.

 

• TGERC staff continue to work intensively with the media while participating in public discussions on the appropriate role of biotechnology in forestry. Through numerous interviews, including regional, national, and international newspaper, radio, and television journalists, TGERC staff continue to be sought for their expertise on the benefits and safety of transgenic trees.

 

• TGERC staff published a number of papers in international journals, and presented invited lectures at diverse venues, concerning the ecological, policy, and certification aspects of transgenic plantations. TGERC staff continue to be recognized as world leaders in making a scientifically-based, rational case for field research and socially acceptable applications of genetic engineering in forestry.

 

• TGERC staff co-organized and hosted a major international symposium on forest biotechnology, and the first international symposium on the ecological and social dimensions of transgenic plantations. The meeting received wide press coverage, was attended by over 228 scholars from 21 countries, had major support from public and private sources, and was widely praised for its scholarly quality and the diversity of views it accommodated.