LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Terminator: Genes
built 275 days ago
The Terminator patent offers an ingenious method for keeping the toxin gene from being active until long after the farmers plant their crops. The trick is accomplished by inserting a piece of DNA in between the seed-specific promoter and the toxin coding sequence that blocks it from being used to make protein.
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Terminator and Traitor technologies are not limited to a single patent, nor is the research confined to one or two companies. Delta & Pine Land is currently the high-profile crusader for Terminator, but the goal of genetic trait control is industry-wide. According to RAFI, over 30 patents are collectively held by the multinational agrochemical firms that dominate the field of biotechnology.
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Cotton is not often sold as a hybrid seed, and is ... a likely candidate for Terminator protection. By way of contrast, corn is usually planted as a hybrid, and thus has some measure of variety protection already. This is because the first generation of a hybrid is genetically fairly uniform, and has been bred to have desired characteristics that are not present in either parent alone. When these hybrids make seeds, however, the second generation is quite variable because of the shuffling of genes that occurs during sexual reproduction. Industrial agriculture requires uniformity, because the plants must dovetail with mechanization. Therefore, industrial farmers who grow corn usually buy new seed every year.
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The pattern recognition method used by Terminator is only applicable to the search for prokaryotic factor-independent terminators. As mentioned above, Terminator is not really a Wisconsin Package program, but was adapted to run with the Package by Greg Hamm. Its behavior is not completely known, and it may not adhere to all Wisconsin Package conventions. Accelrys (GCG) is very grateful to Drs. Brendel and Trifonov for generously allowing them to distribute their program.
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Monsanto may choose to avoid negative publicity by giving up its high-profile association with the Terminator patent, and instead conduct in-house research on a second-generation variation of the suicide seed. "Unfortunately, this isn't goodbye to Terminator, it's probably hasta la vista," explains Mooney, "It's likely that Monsanto's research on genetic seed sterilization will move under-ground where it can be conducted away from public scrutiny and negative publicity." Mooney adds, "After all, this is a technology that is still in the early stages of development, why invite more negative publicity when its still some years away from commercialization?"
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