Giant ragweed soon could cast a giant shadow on the world's most popular herbicide. Researchers at Ohio State and Purdue universities have confirmed glyphosate-resistant giant ragweed populations in Indiana and Ohio. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in herbicides such as Roundup and Touchdown, which are used for burndown weed control in no-till cropping systems and postemergence in Roundup Ready soybeans and corn. The weed species is the seventh in the United States to show resistance to glyphosate.

There may be no better example of the promise and pitfalls of so-called personalized medicine -- tailoring treatments to individual genetic traits -- than the test Genomic Health developed for breast-cancer patients like Katherine Young. [...] Despite widespread hopes that mapping the human genome this decade would usher in a flood of drugs for genetically similar patients, few such products have hit the market, largely because of fears that insurers won't cover their cost.

[...] But even if such food is formally declared safe, consumers won't see cloned meat in the grocery store any time soon because the technology is still too expensive to be used widely, The New York Times reported. Which begs the question: Is there any demand for cloned spare ribs? If cloning isn't somehow more efficient or cost-effective than breeding, what could possibly be the reason to approve cloned food for consumption? Critics say the FDA is looking out for a handful of cloning companies, which are still trying to build a business. Some farmers and breeders who already have cloned animals also have interest in the approval. Other than that, no one is clamoring for it. There is no shortage of cows or pigs.

U.S. and Japanese scientists reported on Sunday that they had used genetic engineering to produce cattle that resist mad cow disease. They hope the cattle can be the source of herds that can provide dairy products, gelatin and other products free of the brain-destroying disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the researchers said their cattle were healthy at the age of 20 months, and sperm from the males made normal embryos that were used to impregnate cows, although it is not certain yet that they could breed normally.

The paper in your April issue by Lai et al. entitled "Generation of cloned transgenic pigs rich in omega-3 fatty acids" (Nat. Biotechnol. 24, 435–436, 2006) perfectly captures the fundamental problem with American biotech research. That problem is that scientists pursue their research agenda to further scientific knowledge—all well and good—but when the project succeeds they invent problems for which their research results can be marketed as a solution. This unreflective move from 'pure science' to commercialization may end up as biotech's undoing.

Arkansas rice growers will be banned in 2007 from planting the Cheniere variety, a seed rice that has tested positive for a genetically modified rice that contaminated some long-grain supplies this year. The decision Wednesday by the state Plant Board came as farmers are making decisions about planting for next year. "We need to act as quickly as possible, because producers are making business decisions right now," Plant Board Director Darryl Little said at the meeting in Little Rock.

It could be the perfect solution for a cat lover who sneezes and wheezes when a kitten comes too close -- a hypoallergenic pet guaranteed to leave its owner sneeze free. Researchers in the United States say the ultimate prize of the $35-billion pet industry is within reach: a cat that has been either selectively bred or genetically altered so it does not produce the allergens that trigger such misery in so many people.

A leading industry group has given scientists the go-ahead to build genetically engineered peanuts that could be safer, more nutritious and easier to grow than their conventional version. The work could lead to peanuts that yield more oil for biofuel production, need less rainfall and grow more efficiently, with built-in herbicide and pest resistance — traits that have already been engineered into major crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans and canola. [...] with the two leading peanut-producing countries, China and India, working aggressively on transgenic peanuts, the American Peanut Council and its research arm, the Peanut Foundation, this month approved a major policy change.

In July 2006, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology and the American Vineyard Foundation held a workshop in San Francisco, CA examining issues relating to the potential adoption of biotechnology in the winegrape and wine industries. Over the course of the two-day event, grape growers, winemakers, grape and yeast research scientists, federal and state government representatives and agricultural commodity and specialty crop producers gathered to discuss the scientific, regulatory and marketing issues associated with the potential development of genetically engineered (GE) winegrapes.

A company that sold and distributed seed corn containing an unregistered genetically engineered pesticide has agreed to pay a $1.5 million penalty to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The settlement between the EPA and Syngenta Seeds Inc. was filed Thursday with the Environmental Appeals Board, which must still approve the penalty, the EPA said in a news release. Syngenta voluntarily disclosed in 2004 that it may have unintentionally distributed the genetically modified corn, called Bt10, to the United States, Europe and South America.