Print This PageThe Road to Roundup Ready® Crops
The Road to Roundup Ready® Crops
As Monsanto set up the first agricultural pesticide screening program in St. Louis in the early 1950s, scientists in the U.K. were unveiling a seminal discovery – the structure of DNA.
In the early 1950’s, Dr. Ernie Jaworski was a new biochemist in Monsanto’s fledgling ag effort. He was interested in DNA as the genetic basis of life and followed the subsequent discoveries built upon DNA with interest. His goal was to use these discoveries to bring novel agricultural products to market. But that would require patience and persistence.
Quote Dr. Ernie Jaworski: “The theory was that you could remove a cell’s walls using enzymes and then fuse cells from two different species in the same genus – like potato and tomato – to form a new species. That really turned me on. Just think of the new plants you could generate.”
By 1972, Jaworski had already published a scientific paper about the molecular level action by which glyphosate kills plants. That year he took a two-month sabbatical to study plant tissue culture technology, and returned convinced that the future of ag was in biology. The agricultural research organization was skeptical of his ideas, but the corporate vice president of technology agreed with Jaworski’s desire to get into tissue culture, and Jaworski eventually persuaded the ag division to let him start a small basic cell biology program.
The year 1972 turned out to be a decisive period in Monsanto’s transition to life sciences. John Hanley became president and chief executive. He believed that Monsanto should move into genetics and molecular biology. But after several unrewarding joint ventures with start-up biotech companies, it was clear that Monsanto had to grow its own expertise if it remained committed to a biotech future. Management turned to Jaworski, and by 1981, he had grown his fledgling research team into a 36-person molecular biology group charged with developing state-of-the-art technology and fundamental knowledge in biotechnology.
By the time Richard Mahoney became CEO in 1984, the biotech scientists had already achieved groundbreaking successes in introducing new genes into plant cells, and regenerating transformed cells into whole plants whose offspring carried the new trait. Those events coupled with an ever greater understanding of the mode of action of glyphosate set the stage for the big vision of glyphosate-tolerant crops. Mahoney hiked spending on R&D to 8 percent of sales, with a sizeable portion going to biotechnology.
Enter the “superbug.” In the early 1980s, people at the Luling, Louisiana Roundup® agricultural herbicide manufacturing site had noticed that certain bacteria in the plant’s waste treatment facility were very good at breaking down glyphosate residue from the manufacturing process.
Knowing that bacteria, like plants, possess EPSPS enzyme for aromatic acid synthesis, scientists took the top 20 glyphosate-defying bacteria from the waste stream at Luling and assayed cell extracts from them for resistance to glyphosate.
One of the assay cultures had completely ignored the glyphosate. The EPSPS of bacteria strain CP4 totally ignored any effect of the presence of glyphosate. That discovery started an all-out blitz to clone the gene that directs the production of bacterium CP4’s unique EPSPS enzyme (called EPSPS II), and to engineer the gene so that it could be inserted into a plant, make its way to the chloroplast, and then do its job in a plant as well as it did in the bacteria.
By 1990, researchers had successfully used the CP4 EPSPS gene to transform soybeans, and in 1996, Monsanto commercially introduced Roundup Ready® soybeans.
Note: With respect to the time period prior to Sept. 1, 2000, references to Monsanto or the company refer to the agricultural business of Pharmacia Corporation, which was known as Monsanto Company until March 1, 2000.
