As a scientist and humanitarian, Swiss plant biologist Ingo Potrykus is right up there with Jonas Salk, who introduced the first polio vaccine; Maurice Hilleman, who invented dozens of vaccines, including 8 of the 14 that are currently recommended; and Norman Borlaug, the “Father of the Green Revolution,” who saved perhaps a billion lives and improved the health of uncountable others.
Or, more accurately, he would be if wrong-headed government regulation had not stalled his once-in-a-lifetime, life-saving innovation.
Potrykus is the co-creator of Golden Rice, a collection of new rice varieties biofortified or enriched, by the introduction of genes that express beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. (It is converted in the body, as needed, to the active form.)
Continue reading Henry Miller in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News…
