Wine lovers, take note of this research. You may not know it, but one of your greatest enemies is something called the grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV).
The results of the virus aren't pretty on the eye (deformed, yellow leaves), or the palette (complete crop loss!). The common way to battle GFLV? Pesticides. Again, the discerning wine consumer may not like that so much, right?
Enter the Frauenhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology in Aachen, Germany. Dr. Stefan Schillberg and his team are working with model plants (at right) to try to genetically engineer, eventually, a grapevine that is resistant to GFLV. You can see some good results. The plant (again, a model plant, not a grapevine) on the far left of the picture wasn't engineered, the other two were. The middle one is more than 50% resistant to GFLV, and the one of the right almost 100% resistant. In this Wide Angle podcast, I got Dr. Schillberg on the line to talk about his work. He started by talking about the unique way they've found of introducing the genetic changes into the plants.
(Photo Credit: Fraunhofer IME)
Tags: Biotechnology, Genetic Science
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