
Glowing Plant Is One of Y Combinator’s First Biotech Startups - katm
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/11/glowing-plant-is-one-of-y-combinators-very-first-biotech-startups/
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technotony
I'm one of the founders of this project, and will be available to answer any
questions you have.

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kourt
How do you guarantee that this DNA will not get released into the wild, and
what is your responsibility for the consequences if it does?

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api
Not the op, but I have an answer to this.

This plant is wasting energy by glowing. It serves no purpose that enhances
the plant's fitness outside of a human environment. If it were released into
the wild, chances are it would lose out in natural selection vs wild
competitors.

The same is true of most human domesticated species, most of which are
effectively genetically engineered through ages of selective breeding. Picture
dogs vs wolves, cows vs wild buffalo, etc.

~~~
technotony
Exactly, the plant is not being given any kind of selective advantage and the
genes in fact incur a metabolic cost on the plant so it will lose out to
natural selection. The domesticated analogy is a great one, plus remember we
took the genes from the wild in the first place!

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gone35
_Exactly, (...)_

Seriously? As the CEO of the company and the person ultimately responsible for
this project, it is troubling that you endorse these simplistic and erroneous
views of plant biosafety. Fitness is notoriously ecosystem-dependent and hard
to predict, which is why microcosm and field experiments-based risk
assessments exist in the first place --it unfortunately can't just be
eyeballed from a simple metabolic account like that. And either way there is
the additional risk of transgene flow, which is even more long-term and less
understood --especially for such relatively distant horizontal transfers.

You might have (unaccountably) skirted APHIS regulation, but that doesn't mean
you don't have an ethical obligation to (1) thoroughly assess the biosafety of
these plants; and (2) be frank in communicating these risks (and their
uncertainty) to the public, even if they do not make as clean of a narrative
as one would like.

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technotony
One of the things we try to do with this project is simplify things so that
people can more clearly understand. Intuitively it's not clear why there are
risk from our work (beyond the unknown unknowns). We have engaged in a number
of panels with expert ecologists and after one an MIT professor asked why we
were always talking about glowing plants as there were no serious risks here.
You can read one of the reports here:
[http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/SYNBIO_res_a...](http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/SYNBIO_res_agenda.pdf)

Also, specifically to your point about transgene flow. Higher level organisms
(eg animals, plants) very very rarely exchange DNA - this is a good thing or
else you might start photosynthesizing after eating salad for lunch. There are
a couple of recent papers saying maybe (and that's maybe in a scientific
probability, ie small probability) this happens on the order of millions of
years. APHIS doesn't even look at this issue anymore, here's their comment on
it:

Potential impacts from transferring genetic information from plant to
organisms with which it cannot interbreed • First, many genomes (or parts
thereof) have been sequenced from bacteria that are closely associated with
plants including Agrobacterium and Rhizobium (Kaneko et al. 2000; Wood et al.
2001; Kaneko et al. 2002). There is no evidence that these organisms contain
genes derived from plants. • Second, in cases where review of sequence data
implied that horizontal gene transfer occurred, these events are believed to
occur on an evolutionary time scale on the order of millions of years (Koonin
et al. 2001; Brown 2003). • Third, transgene DNA promoters and coding
sequences are optimized for plant expression, not prokaryotic bacterial
expression. Thus even if horizontal gene transfer occurred, proteins
corresponding to the transgenes are not likely to be produced. • Fourth, the
FDA has evaluated horizontal gene transfer from the use of antibiotic
resistance marker genes, and concluded that the likelihood of transfer of
antibiotic resistance genes from plant genomes to microorganisms in the
gastrointestinal tract of humans or animals, or in the environment, is remote
(Council for Biotechnology Information, 2001;
[http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opa-armg.html](http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opa-
armg.html), accessed 1/26/10). • Finally, a recent review of issues related to
horizontal gene transfer concluded that this type of gene transfer is unlikely
to occur and poses negligible risks to human health or the environment (Keese
2008).

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gone35
_Intuitively it 's not clear why there are risks from our work._

Far from it! _The very workshop minutes you are citing_ [1, Appendix 3]
directly contradict your point, with participants raising a number of serious
concerns about your project:

"Many questions focused on the ethical and philosophical issues associated
with the project, including matters of consenting public and responsible
science practice. However, only questions relating to the research agenda,
like those impacting regulatory consideration and potential ecological
effects, are included here.

Ecological interactions:

\- How will the impact of the bioluminescence from the plants on wild
organisms be tracked across seed destinations? If this can’t be tracked or
known ahead of time, then how is the application ready for release?

\- How have the interactions of insects with the glowing plant been
characterized? Does this have the potential to disrupt pollinators?

\- Arabadopsis is frequently used in laboratories specifically because it is
easy to grow and is a weedy species. How does this align with comments made
regarding the difficulty of growing the plants, and the extreme unlikelihood
that the seeds would take root and grow if released outdoors?

\- Were any types of biocontrol mechanisms employed or tested in the system?
Why was sterility not introduced into the system when it could serve such a
purpose?

Determining regulatory coverage:

\- Habitats of relevance.

\- Tests for characterizing the application: The seed packets will not be
regulated because the seeds were created using gene guns, while the DIY maker
kits will be regulated because the system will rely on Agrobacterium. Neither
can be shipped internationally. However, once these are distributed, how will
use be monitored? If the plants are expected to be sent to thousands of
individual sites around the country, how are habitats of relevance being
determined? Are all of these locations being tracked, characterized, and
assessed for specific vulnerabilities in advance of product release? The USDA
APHIS test framework is insufficient for this purpose. How could a model be
developed to evaluate such a widely distributed application? What questions
would need addressing in order to appropriately characterize the effort?

\- Demonstration of impact: Compare the altered plants to other mustards, and
assess how well they grow. A series of greenhouse competition assays in a
variety of environ- ments would be a good start, and any identified
differences could point to areas requiring further study. Also study known
pathway interactions up- and downstream. Emphasize the study of the resulting
phenotypes, not the genetic modifications."

[1]
[http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/SYNBIO_res_a...](http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/SYNBIO_res_agenda.pdf)

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zafka
This is pretty cool tech! I kicked in quite a while ago, and am still waiting
for my seeds. While I grumbled a bit, I was given a chance to vote for
spending more time for higher quality--which I did. I am looking forward to
when I have more time to work on things like this.

~~~
technotony
One of the things YC has encouraged us to do is ship early, so we are now
going to ship twice to our Kickstarter backers - you'll get an early prototype
and then version 2.0 as well. Looking forward to sharing our progress with
you!

~~~
zafka
Sweet! I just bought 5 acres in South Florida where I plan to have a combo art
center/research playhouse with greenhouses and different solar systems. The
glow in the dark plants will be a nice accent.

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stillsut
What role did the DIYbio community play in fertilizing your business? What
role do you see that community playing in future 'non-trad' bio-tech start-
ups?

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technotony
The founders met at Biocurious, a DIY Bio space in Sunnyvale, and many of our
early backers came from that community. It's also a key influence behind us
offering the DNA open source and behind offering the maker kit so that others
can do their own plant engineering. DIY Bio means many things to many people,
eg education, community, fun, but I personally see it as the foundation for
entrepreneurs launching such businesses.

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claudiowilson
I'm interested to see the reactions this will garner from the anti-GMO crowd.

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technotony
The usual suspects are of course against this, but one of the reasons we
started the company was to change public perception around GMOs. The
technology has enormous potential to help the world, but it's being held back
by public opinion. What's frustrating is that this opinion is basically not
based on science or evidence, but is mobilized because people are against
things like biotech patents and large companies dominating the food chain. The
glowing plant changes that discussion and we hope that people develop a more
nuanced and balanced perspective once they have a GMO in their own home.

~~~
claudiowilson
I can definitely see the potential for greatness that GMOs have. I'm really
glad that you're trying to change the misguided public perception around them.

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sanj
Just bought a seed packet. Very cool!

Will the plants produce seeds? Reproduce? Will the glow genes reappears in
successive generations?

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technotony
Thank you! The seeds are fertile and will retain the glow for a few
generations at least (eventually evolution will turn it off due to the
metabolic cost on the plant).

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bdonlan
Unless you selectively cultivate them for luminescence, right?

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knodi
I funded this project on kickstart. Can't wait to get the seeds.

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dasmoth
I fear I know the answer to this already but just on the off chance -- is
there any possibility these might be sold in Europe in the foreseeable future?

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technotony
Foreseeable future yes, near future no I'm afraid. EU regulations require
monitoring of every one of our plants which works for GMO's in fields (but is
costly!) but is untenable for a consumer product. I'm optimistic the rules
will change one day!

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fred_durst
Do mean that EU regulations require you to monitor the plants once you sell
them? Possibly to prevent an enterprising young man from planting 1,000s of
these in the woods behind his house in order to have the coolest rave ever?

~~~
technotony
That's exactly what they require unfortunately. You have to know where they
are planted and monitor the other plants in the area around them, obviously
impossible for a consumer product!

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al2o3cr
Kickstarter backer here. Have you considered teaming up with another KS
project (Click and Grow)? They've got a neat "self-watering" plant setup:

[http://www.clickandgrow.com/smartpot](http://www.clickandgrow.com/smartpot)

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pcrh
This seems a bit gimmicky, how does Glowing Plant thnk it's business will fare
compared to Glofish?

[http://www.glofish.com/](http://www.glofish.com/)

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technotony
We are in touch with the Glofish founders, their business is doing well and
they are in thousands of retails stores. The biggest difference though is that
we have a very strong technical team who can continue to develop and improve
our products, Glofish licenses from an academic research group. Like a
software business this is a rapidly evolving technology so its important to
have technical co-founders - YC obviously understands this!

~~~
pcrh
I'd like to see this in a plant like a climbing rose. It would be very neat to
cover a trellis, gazebo, or something similar!

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jqm
This is really cool.

I can't wait to see what the next several decades bring in this space.

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ck2
It's all fun and games until a pet decides to eat it and gets sick or worse.

