Advanced Genetic Sciences

Advanced Genetic Sciences (AGS) was a biotechnology company which made the world's first officially approved environmental release of a GMO in a field test of the "ice-minus" bacterium, designed to protect crops from frost. It was a GM version of a common agricultural pest, Pseudonomas syringae. The release was approved by the EPA in 1983 but was delayed for some years by environmental protests and a lawsuit brought by author and activist Jeremy Rifkin, finally taking place in 1987.

The ice-minus bacterium was never commercialized. This has been painted by GM proponents such as Henry I. Miller as a story of Luddite greens and over-zealous regulators holding back a brilliant crop-saving technology.

But Brian Tokar, writing in Wild Earth, gives a different account, citing unanswered questions about the safety of the technology and justified opposition from local residents about environmental risks, leading to the demise of AGS:

Controversies over genetically engineered organisms were pretty much limited to university communities until 1983, when researchers at the University of California gained NIH approval for an experimental release of frost-inhibiting bacteria in northern California. Author Jeremy Rifkin’s Foundation on Economic Trends filed a lawsuit, charging that the government neglected to consider the possible effects of the altered bacteria upon natural ecological balances, other species of plants and bacteria, and effects on the formation of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere necessary for the development of clouds. In a surprising ruling in May of 1984, a federal judge halted the experiment.

When Advanced Genetic Sciences (AGS), a company with close ties to the University but not subject to NIH rules, announced plans to test the frost-inhibiting bacteria in agriculturally-rich Monterey County, local residents organized to oppose the tests, and successfully amended the county land use plan to effectively prohibit releases of engineered organisms. When the test was moved to an agricultural town east of Berkeley, Green activists from that city joined people living near the site in opposing the experiment. Concerns varied from long-term effects on the wintering cycles of native plants, to evidence associating AGS’ bacterial strains with a variety of known plant diseases, reports that AGS workers had been suffering from allergic reactions and sinus troubles probably associated with the bacteria and concerns about conflicts of interest between the company, the University and various federal and state agencies.

The so-called “ice-minus” experiments were short lived, due to a number of factors, each of which played a role in AGS’ eventual capitulation. Local opposition was sustained for two years, and the experiments continued to provoke controversy in the local press. Once judicial avenues were exhausted, activists continually sabotaged the company’s experimental plots, pulling up thousands of strawberry plants late at night. Opponents were helped by two scientific flaws that AGS nearly succeeded in covering up: “ice-minus” bacteria did not protect plants from frost damage as well as advertised, and the company was unable to prevent genetically altered bacteria from escaping their test plots. Soon it became clear that the company simply would not be able to convince enough communities to accept their experiments to ever produce a commercially viable product.

AGS was acquired by DNA Plant Technology in 1988 and was then subsequently acquired by Savia in 1996.

People

• Neal Gutterson, as of July 2010 the president and CEO of biotech company Mendel Biotechnology, began his biotechnology career at AGS in 1983. After AGS was acquired by DNA Plant Technology in 1988, Gutterson led the DNAP research group for several years before joining Mendel Biotechnology in 2002 as vice president of research and development.