With 8 billion people to feed, the planet is feeling the stress. Food production accounts for more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions due to raising livestock for meat, which is the primary source of protein for most people. With protein consumption essential for humans and the population only growing, finding alternative ways to produce these essential nutrients is critical. Eyal Ronen, EVP of business development at Israeli computational biology company Evogene (EVGN), explores.

One encouraging approach to address this is the growing field of molecular farming, which utilises computational and DNA-based technologies to breed consumable animal protein via plants. According to experts, it is regarded as an increasingly important recent development in food production. Especially when aided by artificial intelligence (AI), molecular farming has the potential to transform the food and agricultural industries, making them more sustainable, healthy and efficient.

Animal meat, which contains all of the essential amino acids and nutrients humans need to thrive, is the best protein source. Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids that the human body cannot generate and therefore must be consumed through diet. Vegetables and grains have proteins, too – but individual species of vegetables and grains do not contain the complete set of protein-based nutrients that meat does.

While there are ways to derive all the required amino acids from plants, animal protein is the most efficient path. However, livestock farming for food production heavily affects the environment.

That’s where molecular farming comes in – with plants used as the host to grow and develop various proteins containing all the necessary amino acids and nutrients that are usually available only in animal products. Various start-ups are developing such technologies, involving numerous different proteins.

What is molecular farming?

Molecular farming involves genetically modifying plants to enable them to produce or host elements not associated with them. That modification can be permanent, inserted into plant seeds to pass to the next generation, or temporary, with particular genes inserted into specific plants to produce the desired effect. In the case of molecular farming for proteins associated with animals, genes are (painlessly) extracted from those animals, and inserted into the plant, where the animal genes are integrated into the plant’s genetic structure.

Once optimised, the procedure can be implemented at scale, with the requisite genetic material inserted into many plants or seeds – essentially an environmentally-friendly 'factory farm'.

AI is fundamental to molecular farming. Before any physical modifications occur, AI is used to screen and analyse the desired protein structure and the host plant genome that would provide the best path to produce it. AI makes it possible to find various types of proteins –including whey and haemoglobin – and viable host plants more quickly. Whereas soy has often been used as a host plant, the greater and faster understanding of genomes has now opened the doors to using potatoes, tobacco and other plants.

And while the ordinary plant genes grow proteins usually associated with that crop, the newly-introduced gene grows proteins associated with animals. The plant grows like any other, but when it’s harvested, the proteins can be removed from it in a specialised separation and purification process, which can then be used to produce high-protein food that is usually only made from animal products.

Precision fermentation

Molecular farming isn’t the only way to grow animal proteins on plant hosts; scientists are also working on bioreactor-based precision fermentation methods to accomplish that.

Precision fermentation is the source for many of the animal-free products being created by bio-tech firms today. This technology allows the growth of almost any molecule, including proteins, on nearly any microorganism. While the approach may have broader applications than molecular farming, it is several times more expensive; scaled-up production is not easy; regulation is challenging; and there isn’t enough bioreactor capacity to produce the commercial levels of non-animal-based animal proteins to significantly impact the market.

The use of plants to replace animal-based production of whole proteins also obviates the issue of animal welfare in food production and factory farms – an important one for many consumers.

Given a choice, consumers prefer to eat foods that are cruelty-free – but many are unwilling or wary of going vegetarian, concerned they will miss out on essential nutrients. With molecular farming, humans can have it all – the essential complete proteins they need to thrive, with the assurance that no cows, pigs, chickens, or any other living creature are harmed in their protein’s journey from farm to plate. And, of course, they are helping to reduce the environmental damage associated with animal-based protein production.

Molecular farming technology is still in its infancy – and has the potential for use in areas beyond food production. The process can encompass the production of any value-added protein, including industrial enzymes, technical reagents, nutritional products, hormones, as well as components used in vaccines and other therapeutics.

But the greatest contribution of molecular farming could be to the world’s supply of whole proteins – enabling people to get the full effects of a meat-based diet without the need for environmentally unfriendly animal agriculture systems.

#Opinion #Evogene #EVGN #molecularfarming