Our project is ROOTED in good values!
Human practices aren’t an afterthought for the CU-Boulder iGem team. Rather, they lie at the heart of our project. The CU-Boulder iGEM team has made it our mission to create a safe and environmentally friendly method of producing paclitaxel. The Pacific Yew Tree, from which paclitaxel is harvested, is slow growing and near threatened1. Along with this, paclitaxel is one of the most common chemotherapeutics for treating breast cancer, the most common cancer in the United States this year2. Two problems arise from this: the population reduction of the Pacific Yew trees, and high prices for Taxol. Generic paclitaxel can cost $150 a dose, but name-brand Taxol can cost as much as $10003. Treatment requires multiple doses over several months, which can compile expenses for the patient regardless of the lower price. Engineering soybeans as a producer of paclitaxel solves both of these issues. Soybeans are easier to farm, faster to grow, and cheaper to produce than any Pacific Yew. Along with this, the production of paclitaxel in soybeans will help limit the deforestation of these old-growth forests. Paclitaxel production in soybeans could provide a platform for the mass production of paclitaxel on a much larger scale than the current method, lowering costs and eliminating the need to destroy more Pacific Yew trees. This project is especially important to the CU-Boulder iGEM team because a few members have personal relationships with patients who had difficulty affording the necessary paclitaxel treatment.
All things considered, we are not diving headfirst into genetic modification haphazardly. We’ve taken several steps to prioritize the safety of our project for the environment and for people who rely on this expensive, life-saving treatment. Firstly, we’re currently engineering methods to ensure our plants remain cleistogamous, which means flowers from our soybeans will never open, preventing cross-pollination with other crops and ensuring total self-fertilization. Secondly, we use a RUBY reporter to indicate whether or not our engineered genes are in the soybeans. Using this reporter, transfected plants will grow purple-red, a stark contrast from the wild-type green of naturally occurring soybeans4. Consequently, it will be obvious which plants may have acquired our engineered genes, which helps combat the growing concern of GM contamination5 by providing a way for farmers to immediately differentiate a GM plant from a wild type. This is in contrast to herbicide resistance, which requires exposure to carcinogenic chemicals, or requires sacrificial plant cultures. The CU-Boulder iGEM team has made it our priority to close the gap between the increasing demand and cost for this life-saving chemotherapeutic while limiting the environmental impact of harvesting paclitaxel. Learn more about the steps we take to protect our world by reading our Safety and Security page.