Companies Quietly Apply Biofuel Tools to Household Products
By Stephanie Strom, NY Times, May 30, 2014
Consumer products containing ingredients made using an advanced form of engineering known as synthetic biology are beginning to show up more often on grocery and department store shelves.
A liquid laundry detergent made by Ecover, a Belgian company that makes “green” household products including the Method line, contains an oil produced by algae whose genetic code was altered using synthetic biology. The algae’s DNA sequence was changed in a lab, according to Tom Domen, the company’s manager for long-term innovation.
Ecover calls the algae-produced oil a “natural” replacement for palm kernel oil, which is in such high demand that environmentalists are concerned that tropical rain forests are being felled to grow palm trees, disturbing ecosystems and threatening endangered animals.
“Finding a sustainable source of palm oil is, of course, difficult,” Mr. Domen said. “This new oil is a more sustainable alternative from a new technology.”
That technology is synthetic biology, which involves the creation of biological systems intended for specific purposes. Synthetic biology, originally aimed at producing biofuels, has been around for about 20 years, but applications have only recently begun to emerge across several industries including cosmetics, flavorings and scents.
Unilever recently announced that it was using algae oil made by a company called Solazyme in Lux, a popular soap. The two companies signed an agreement in 2009 to explore use of Solazyme’s products in the consumer giant’s goods.
But in an illustration of how reluctant companies may be to disclose the use of synthetic biology, it is unclear whether the oil in Lux was generated through the same synthetic process. Unilever declined to comment.
These announcements have prompted some environmental groups and consumer activists to call for labeling that would disclose whether synthetic biology was used to make product ingredients.
“We support Ecover’s determination to move away from using unsustainable palm oil, but would ask your company to reconsider the false solution of using ingredients derived from the new genetic engineering--synthetically modified organisms,” the groups wrote in a letter to the company.
An ingredient crucial to malaria drugs, artemisinin, is already being produced from a yeast altered through synthetic biology. Specific brands have not been disclosed.
The processes using synthetic biology involve techniques that more extensively alter genetic code. Those include “artificial gene synthesis,” in which DNA is created on computers and inserted into organisms, and other methods for changing DNA sequences and genes within organisms to alter their function.
Environmental and consumer groups want Ecover to note the use of synthetic biology in the new oil it is using so that consumers know what they are buying.
The groups acknowledge that the Solazyme oil itself--in the Ecover detergent--does not contain genetically engineered ingredients in the conventional meaning of the term. Rather, the organism producing the oil has been genetically altered.
But they contend that calling products that contain such ingredients “natural,” an obvious selling point for companies, gives a false impression. “This is not what consumers think of when they see the word natural on a label,” said Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union.
A new paper on the regulation of synthetic biology from the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit research group, noted that the techniques of synthetic biology creating genetically engineered organisms will fall outside some existing regulatory authority and that the number of such organisms coming to market may overwhelm regulators. “As engineered microbes become increasingly complex, risk assessments will pose a greater challenge,” according to the report by the institute, which was founded in part by Dr. Venter, a pioneer in genomics.
