Progressive Farmer's Man of the Year: John Sanford

["C. S. Prakash" <prakash@TUSK.EDU>]

Man of the Year: John Sanford

Progressive Farmer, January 2001
http://www.progressivefarmer.com/issue/0101/sanford/default.asp
(thanks to HANU PAPPU <HRP@tifton.cpes.peachnet.edu> for this alert
to Agbioview)

 From a simple BB gun, this scientist fired the shot heard around the
world-the promise of biotechnology to feed the hungry.

The revolution of agricultural biotechnology came to be through the
business end of a Crossman BB gun-a dime-store toy wielded by many a
rambunctious youth. This is the pistol that powered the first gene
gun, a low-tech, "laughable" idea, mocked in the scientific community.

It will never work, they said. But it did. And it transformed
agriculture in a way no one understands.

 From an idea of Cornell University scientist John Sanford, the world
now has corn and cotton that kill insect pests, plants that are
resistant to herbicides, a rice resistant to insects (from the genes
of potatoes) and tolerant of salt and drought (genes from barley).
The gene gun was used to create a virus-resistant fruit that will
save Hawaii's $45-million-a-year papaya crop from a viral killer. In
less developed countries, the technology Sanford pioneered is
embraced as a miracle, perhaps a real way to beat chronic crop
failures and hunger.

Also evolving from his BB gun is a hand-held gene gun for use on
humans and animals that shoots genetic vaccines directly into the
skin. The vaccines, says Sanford friend and University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center researcher Stephen Johnston, are safer
than today's vaccines and produce "whopping" immune responses.  It is
because so much human good has come from the barrel of an air pistol
that Progressive Farmer is honored to elect John Sanford its 2001 Man
of the Year in Service to Agriculture.

Agriculture's newest production revolution began in the fall of 1983
when Sanford was waging an aggravating backyard battle with
plundering squirrels. So it was BBs Sanford had on his mind when
Cornell University electrical engineer Ed Wolf asked him this
question: Exactly what speed is needed to force bits of genetic
material through the fragile, semipermeable walls of plant cells?
Wolf and Sanford had done some hard thinking about Sanford's ideas
for moving genetic material into living plant cells, and had come
upon the notion of "shooting" it in. But what about that speed? Wolf
wondered. Sanford thought for a moment. "About the speed of a BB," he
said.

Wolf looked over his array of electromagnetic accelerators and ion
beams. The less-than-blazing speed of a BB can be achieved with much
less sophistication he thought. Wolf came across the right tool on a
cluttered shelf in Fay's Drug Store near the Cornell campus-a
Crossman air pistol. Christmas break 1983 brought together Sanford,
Wolf and Nelson Allen (the head machinist in Wolf's lab who modified
the BB gun and, later, vastly improved versions of it) for the first
tests of this low-tech but elegant tool for moving genetic material.

Into a hole drilled in the barrel of the gun, the three poured bits
of powdered tungsten. The target was a whole onion, which Sanford
chose for its large cells. The first blasts of air were so violent
that bits of onion splattered back onto the researchers, donning the
customary white gowns, booties and hats of ultra-clean laboratories.
As the roomed filled with the pungent smell of splattered onion,
Sanford made adjustments and soon had tungsten hitting the
bull's-eye-the insides of onion cells.

Sanford took what Allen and Wolf jokingly called the macroparticle
accelerator back to his lab. There he soon proved the cells survived
the shots of tungsten and that DNA could be delivered into the cells
on these particles. He soon realized bursts of air from air guns
where too uncontrollable-too close and the cells were blasted apart;
too far away and the particles failed to penetrate. So in the spirit
of Tim Allen's TV character Tim the Toolman, he added more power.
Sanford brought into the employ of the fragile craft of plant
biotechnology .22-caliber blanks (the kind used in nail guns). The
blanks powered a plunger that ran into a stopping plate that was
pierced with a small hole. The tip of the plunger was treated with
DNA-covered bits of tungsten. When fired, the rod shot forward,
striking the stopping plate. The DNA-coated tungsten flew forward
through the hole into the target cells.

That's the theory.

In practice, it fell to a sometimes powder-burned Ted Klein, a young
researcher now working at DuPont, to fire the gun and dodge bits of
high-velocity debris. Klein soon began tying a length of string to
the trigger and leaving the room before firing the gun. Researchers
on the second floor of Cornell's Hedrick Hall never did get used to
the sporadic gunfire coming coming from Sanford's lab. And neither
did the cells. They often died from the effect of blast and
gunpowder.  But Sanford and Klein slowly improved their techniques.
Klein's work eventually led to the first successful biolistic
transformations of plants. By 1986, with improvements in the
gun-today's gene guns are most likely powered by gas, such as
helium-Sanford's lab, in collaboration with Pioneer Hi-Bred
International, Inc., produced the first transformation of corn.

Sanford and Klein's gun shattered the biotech bottleneck. Researchers
knew what some genes did and even how to get some inside plants, but
the gun made the process faster, more reliable and less expensive.
Plus it worked in a wide variety of applications. From that work,
Sanford has moved on. After selling the rights to his gene gun to
DuPont and selling Sanford Scientific, a company he founded, a
financially-secure Sanford opened the doors to his Feed My Sheep
Institute in Waterloo, N.Y.

A deeply religious man, Sanford hoped to transfer for free the
benefits of plant genetic engineering to Third World nations.
Although his intentions were honorable, the real-world costs were too
high. So Sanford has mothballed Feed My Sheep. Today, he works some
on his own human gene gun, but more often he is engaged in what he
calls the field of Christian spiritual nutrition. He won't say much
about it, except that his work takes on some of the rougher edges of
TV of the Internet. With regard to some of today's biotechnology
controversies-particularly charges about Aventis' StarLink seed
potentially causing allergic reactions in humans-Sanford admits some
confusion. He points out that the proteins of dispute are very
similar to ones that, for decades, have been an important tool in
organic farming.

What's more, he says, "We're exposed to tens or hundreds of thousands
of proteins in a normal diet. There are a bewildering array of
potential allergens. They have never been regulated. But now there
seems to be [a movement to] arbitrarily and artificially raise
barriers [to their advanced use]." He finds today's loud and angry
biotech debate a bit ironic. As a student in the 1970s, Sanford
remembers his alarm at the prospect of mass starvation. The thought
of the "population bomb" drew him into the field of plant breeding.

And with the fruits of his labor, Sanford has helped bring the
promise of genetic engineering to all who must eat to live.

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