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GMOs can be harmful as well as beneficial
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
Canadian scientists have begun to prepare medicines from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In particular, Canadian researchers from the company SubTerra have high hopes for two of them from the legume family - lupine and wood sorrel. From genetically modified plants, scientists plan to extract an enzyme capable of overcoming severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), also known as bubble boy syndrome, alymphocytosis or Glanzmann-Rinicker syndrome.
Today, this terrible disease affects one in 100,000 newborns. The immune system of children with SCID is constantly under threat, and so they are forced to live in a sterile environment - a plastic bubble.
Scientists have modified legumes to produce an analogue of a human enzyme capable of treating alymphocytosis. Today, a bovine enzyme is used to overcome the syndrome, which does not eliminate the risk of contracting mad cow disease.
According to Anthony Jevniker, president of the pharmaceutical company Plantigen and director of the multi-organ transplant program at the London Ontario Health Sciences Centre, genetically modified plants will be great helpers in medicine because they do not contain animal viruses and are non-toxic.
The first tests of new GMO drugs will be conducted on fish and mice at universities in the US and Canada. The product could be tested on patients in a few years.
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