Poplar Eats Pollution

Joshua McNichols
11/02/2007

Scientists at the University of Washington have developed a poplar tree that sucks up pollution, but skeptics say it's important to keep genetically modified plants under tight control. KUOW's Joshua McNichols has more.

U.W. PROFESSOR STUART STRAND WORKED ON THE PROJECT.

STRAND: "This is a method in which the genes are actually coated on particles of gold. And they're shot into the mass of tissue."

STRAND TOOK THE GENES FROM A RABBIT'S LIVER AND SPLICED THEM INTO A POPLAR TREE. HE CALLS HIS CREATION A "HOP-LAR." THEY STARTED IN A PETRI DISH. AND A YEAR LATER, THEY'RE RECOGNIZEABLE AS TREES.

STRAND: "Well this is a little tree, it's about an inch tall, it's growing in a little contained box."

BUT THIS TREE, LIKE THE RABBIT TO WHICH IT IS RELATED, CAN METABOLIZE TOXIC WASTES. STRAND SAYS HIS TREES CAN CLEAN UP CONTAMINATED GROUNDWATER 100 TIMES MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN A STANDARD POPLAR.

STRAND: "The compounds are taken up in the roots, and then the degradation occurs in the roots. CO2 is formed, and of course CO2 can be used in photosynthesis. But there is no residue that's left in the leaves, that falls in the leaves, there's no residue."

THE PROFESSOR HOPES HIS TEAM'S DISCOVERIES CAN HELP DEVELOP SPECIALIZED HOUSEPLANTS THAT SCRUB SICK BUILDINGS OF AIRBORNE POLLUTION.

THE UNIVERSITY'S CENTER FOR URBAN HORTICULTURE WAS ATTACKED SIX YEARS AGO FOR WHAT ONE GROUP THOUGHT WAS GENETIC ENGINEERING OF POPLAR TREES. DESPITE THIS, MOST OPPOSITION TO GENETIC ENGINEERING IS MORE CONCERNED WITH FOOD AND SUPERWEEDS. CRAIG WINTERS HEADS A LOCAL GROUP THAT WANTS TO SEE LABELLING OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS. HE SAYS GENETIC ENGINEERING SHOULD ONLY BE USED AS A LAST RESORT.

WINTERS: "If you have a poplar tree and it's not genetically engineered it's going to take up maybe three percent of the pollutants. But if you genetically modify it, it might get up to 91 percent. But can you, using selective breeding and mapping the genome of the poplar plant, create methods to bring that up to 40 or 50 percent."

WINTERS SAYS THE ENGINEERED TREES MUST BE CAREFULLY CONTAINED TO PREVENT SPREADING THE GENES TO NATIVE SPECIES.

PROFESSOR STRAND SAYS THERE'S LITTLE ENVIRONMENTAL RISK. HE SAYS UNLIKE OTHER GENETIC EXPERIMENTS, HIS POPLARS COULD NOT COMPETE WITH NATIVE VEGETATION IN AN UNCONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT. STILL, HE DOESN'T PLAN TO LET THEM ESCAPE INTO THE WILD. HE SELECTED THIS PARTICULAR POPLAR BECAUSE IT DOESN'T SPROUT FROM FALLEN LIMBS. HE SAYS IF IT'S CUT TO THE GROUND EVERY FEW YEARS, IT WILL NEVER FLOWER OR PRODUCE SEEDS. I'M JOSHUA MCNICHOLS, KUOW NEWS.

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