Team:UIUC Illinois/Human Practices
Human Practices
Glyphosate is an important agricultural herbicide that facilitates industrial agriculture and helps sustain large human populations. Slide the Rounddown logo above from left to right to see how through the industrialization of agriculture, we can sustain so many people. Despite this important agricultural role, there is controversy surrounding the safety of glyphosate for humans and the environment. Companies that produce glyphosate claim that because it degrades rapidly and only works on plants’ shikimate acid pathway, it is not harmful to humans or the environment. However, some have linked Roundup exposure to Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other cancers, kidney disease, and other health problems (Luoping Zhang, 2019). The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a part of the World Health Organization (WHO) categorized glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. Bayer (the producer of Roundup) has been the subject of over 4000 lawsuits regarding glyphosate causing Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in farmers, the most famous of which led to Bayer paying the individual $78 million after the company appealed the original $289 million lawsuit. (Yan)
In order to understand these varied perspectives, we sought out professionals in relevant scientific fields. Our interactions with the scientific community showed us that the debate isn’t solely on the public scale, and that it is a topic of contention within the scientific community as well. Regardless of whether or not the interviewee thought glyphosate was harmful to humans or the environment, all believed that farmers have become over-reliant on glyphosate and its use should be decreased. Most of the crop scientists associated with our university believed that glyphosate is not harmful to humans but has some negative effects in the environment. Farmers use glyphosate at above-recommended levels due to the increasingly prevalent problem that weeds are becoming resistant to glyphosate. This is causing an overreliance on glyphosate and the professors had some insight on how it can be decreased.
Martin O. Bohn (Associate Professor)
Crop Genetic Improvement - Plant Breeding and Genetics (UIUC)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- For real life implementation of our project, we should use an organism besides E. coli as the public views E. coli in a negative light.
- Test life cycle analysis to make sure that our E. coli strain can function as intended through mutations over generations.
- Data from geological surveys for each country can be used to find a good temperature for a simulated system.
- Make sure that E. coli can completely break down glyphosate into non-toxic products.
"I think you need to get an appreciation for how bad weeds are... 90% of the farmers in developing countries that do not have access to chemical herbicides spend 90% of their lifetime weeding fields so that they can harvest something...when the industry came out with herbicides that can kill weed, this was a huge relief to farmers"
Patrick J. Tranel (Associate Head, Professor)
Crop Science - Sustainable Weed Management Systems (UIUC)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- For practical implementation, targeting large bodies of water is not practical because when organisms are usually designed to detoxify, it’s for a very targeted group. A better target might be glyphosate spill sites.
- Horizontal gene transfer needs to be considered when exposing Rounddown to the environment. The enzyme or gene might move into another bacterium which will then become resistant to glyphosate and cause unintended downstream consequences.
- A problem in agriculture is that many are completely dependent on glyphosate as a method of weed control.
"One thing would be nice is if we had more crop rotations. So, rather than just having corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans, they go corn, and then alfalfa, and then maybe some weeds, and then soybeans... The use of robotics, little tiny robots that go around the fields and destroy the weeds"
Dean Edward Riechers (Professor)
Plant Protection - Weed Science (UIUC)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- Freshwater contamination is negatively affecting beneficial plants in streams.
- AMPA is killing E. coli but it’s approximately 10-fold less toxic to plants than glyphosate and should ideally be turned over.
- Monsanto discovered that the EPSP synthase enzyme in the shikimic acid pathway is glyphosate’s primary target.
- Since glyphosate is unlikely to be banned, it is strategically beneficial to be able to degrade glyphosate where it’s undesired.
"I still believe glyphosate is one of the best herbicides in terms of environmental conservation. It is unlikely in US that government completely bans glyphosate"
Aaron G. Hager (Associate Professor)
Plant Protection - Weed Science (UIUC)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- Glyphosate is banned in Europe, but things are different there because their environmental regulations make it unfavorable to work with herbicides.
- 90%+ of the corn and soybean grown in Illinois are resistant to glyphosate due to the introduction of Roundup Ready crops in 1996.
- It’s easier to sue Monsanto in California because it’s a very liberal state.
- For future implementation of this project, some things to consider would be what regulation authority it would be under – USDA, EPA, FDA or APHIS.
"Farmers listen to industry people, but some of them may not be weed scientists. And as faculty, we can't force farmers to make change.s They will have to make their own decisions of who to listen to, whether weed specialists or industrial representatives."
Luoping Zhang (Adjunct Professor)
Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences (UC Berkeley)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- Glyphosate research is still controversial and politically sensitive, and most of the recent studies provide more biological evidence showing adverse health effects of glyphosate.
- Although the underlying mechanisms are unclear, glyphosate exposure may affect the immune system and microbiome as well as cause DNA and chromosome damage.
- Glyphosate exposure levels in farmers and their families are much higher when compared to the general public.
"Our recently published meta-analysis including an important Agriculture Health Study (AHS) and a priori hypothesis shows the relationship between glyphosate exposure and Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The finding is consistent with previous meta-analyses, including the one supported by Monsanto (industry)"
Stephanie Seneff (Senior Research Scientist)
Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence (MIT)
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- Glyphosate poses a threat to the environment, especially wildlife such as fish, bees, butterflies and frogs.
- Glyphosate is an amino acid analogue of the coding amino acid glycine, and, as a result, is getting incorporated into proteins in place of glycine. Its bulkier size, negative charge and increased water solubility disrupt both the protein structure and function in many cases.
- Glyphosate kills plants by disrupting the EPSP synthase in the shikimate pathway. EPSP synthase has a highly conserved glycine residue at the binding site for the substrate phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), the glyphosate substitution for this glycine prevents PEP binding, inactivating the enzyme.
- Weeds develop resistance to glyphosate by 'mucing with' the other amino acids near the glycine, so as to crowd out glyphosate and prevent it from substituting.
"I don't understand how people can be so confident about glyphosate not poisoning people. They are evil."
William A. Battaglin (Research Hydrologist)
United States Geological Survey- Colorado Water Science Center
Important Contributions to Our Project:
- Glyphosate and its by-products are a big issue in water bodies.
- Glyphosate over 700 ug/L is unsafe in water according to regulations.
- Glyphosate/AMPA are commonly detected in surface waters (50% of over 470 sites).
- Glyphosate is more mobile in sandy soil in coastal areas.
"Yes, from an environmental standpoint, I have concerns about the rate at which glyphosate appears in the environment, particularly in small water bodies."
How human practices helped our experiment:
Our interactions as a part of human practices changed our experimental direction a great deal. Some of the important questions that were brought up in our meetings as a result were:
Is our product safe in the environment?
This is an issue that we’re still working on addressing. Our Rounddown does not confer any specific survival advantage to its host, so it won’t be inherently dangerous. However, introducing GMOs into the environment is a very complicated process, and there can be several unforeseen repercussions of doing so. We are currently working on analyzing these and trying to identify contained areas where glyphosate degradation would be useful.
Would our strain be better suited to working in soil or water?
Since glyphosate poses an issue both in soil and water, we weren’t certain where our strain would best be applied. Since glyphosate is present in surface waters in so many different environments, we thought that it would be hard to modify our Rounddown to work in all of them. Talking to the crop sciences professors helped us realize that Rounddown could be used in soil, after application to prevent accumulation of glyphosate.
Is E. coli survivable in the environments where glyphosate needs to be degraded?
Since E. coli is a gut bacteria, it is not survivable in the environments we intended to use it. Due to this, to apply it into soil, in the future we aim to transform our Rounddown into Bacillus subtilis. We chose this strain of bacteria since it’s native to soil and easy to use in transformations.
Luoping Zhang, and Rachel Shaffer. "Exposure to Glyphosate-Based Herbicides and Risk for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis and Supporting Evidence." Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research, Elsevier, 10 Feb. 2019, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383574218300887.
Yan, Holly. "Cancer Patient Who Was Awarded $289 Million in Monsanto Trial Says He'll Take $78 Million Instead.” CNN, Cable News Network, 1 Nov. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/health/monsanto-plaintiff-accepts-lower-award/index.html.
