THE DAYS of the European corn
borer, a notorious maize pest found
in North America and Europe, seem
numbered now that researchers have
been able to inject into susceptible
crops a gene fatal to the insect
(BiolTechnology, Vol 11, No 2).
But the gene, which has been
taken from a bacteria called Bacillus
thuringiensis, is unable to produce
enough of the protein to kill the
pests. So researchers at Ciba-Geigy
Seeds, a Swiss agricultural-biotechnology company, synthetically modified the gene before introducing it
into an elite variety of maize.
Scientists say the new maize variety
could save corn worth millions of
dollars that is destroyed every year by the pest.
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