Workshop and breakout sessions

摘要

The workshop that followed the symposium was chaired by Dr. David Lineback and was prefaced by two papers that expressed the speakers’ viewpoints. The first paper, “Viewpoint: Nutritional Needs vs. Realities in the Scene of Biotechnology-derived Nutritious Foods,” was given by Dr. Bhattiprolu Sivakumar, Director of the National Institute of Nutrition, India. Dr. Sivaku-mar focused on the potential of genetically modified foods to satisfy nutritional requirements, giving as an example Golden Rice, which was developed in an attempt to improve vitamin A nutrition by increas-ing the β-carotene content of rice. However, because of limitations in the bioavailability of β-carotene and its conversion to vitamin A in the body, it would be difficult to satisfy the vitamin A requirements of chil-dren with the level of β-carotene in Golden Rice (1.6 μg of carotene/g). Enriching canola oil with β-carotene (600 μg/g) would be better. The quantity and quality of protein in terms of its amino acid content is another case in point. In the genetically enriched transgenic potato (1.6 g protein/100 g), for example, the increase in the amount of protein over that in the nontransgenic potato is so small that it is not significant in terms of protein requirements. However, the improvement in the protein quality (about 6%) of transgenic vs. nontransgenic potato is significant. Thus, many tech-nological considerations, in addition to sociological and safety considerations, need to be addressed. In fact, along with or even before studies on safety, careful nutritional evaluation should be considered.