The first signs of a quiet revolution in our daily lives will probably come with some fairly non-controversial commercial products. Much research has gone into cellular critters that can digest oil spills or other toxic contaminants. Some work reasonably well already. Soon enough such research will give us a spectrum of organisms which digest unpleasant substances. That should mean refineries that don't stink, rivers that don't catch on fire, streams that aren't sewers.
Plants have plenty of chemical defenses and a smart farmer will come to use that. In temperate zones, winter is the best insecticide; it keeps the bugs in check. The tropics enjoy no such respite, so plants there have developed a wide range of alkaloids that kill off nosy insects and animals. Nicotine is an excellent insect foe; the fact that humans addict to it is a curious side effect. Adapting such defenses to orchards and crops is an obvious path for biotech.
Consider the farm of the next century, which we might better call a "pharm"because it may well be devoted to growing proteins, not wheat. Already researchers can synthesize proteins in animals by co-opting their own schemes for making, for example, milk.
Genetically altered goats have been made to yield in their milk a particular human protein which effectively dissolves the fibrin clots responsible for coronary occlusions. Efficiencies are low, but probably won't remain so. To get high yields, it will be a good idea to go to dairy cows, which produce 10,000 liters of milk a year.
Imagine a cow which yields insulin, the expensive lifesaver of diabetics. We could make such a beast by editing the genes that control the cow's internal chemistry. The simple way would be to make two kinds of cows, one that produced milk rich in the "alpha" chain that helps make up insulin, and a second that makes the "beta" chain. This would free the cows from having to contend with insulin in their own systems, for only when the alpha and beta chains are mixed do we get insulin itself.
Insulin grown down on the pharm would probably be much cheaper than ours today. Similarly, there seems no barrier to making many pharmaceuticals in natural systems. Sheep might be specialized to a whole range of useful drugs, for example. International giants such as Merck are studying such avenues now.
Sheep, goats, and cows would become the essential "bioreactors" that reproduce themselves in a barnyard biotech which could benefit many farmers who never heard of protein tinkering. But there will be troubles, because such animals don't breed true. A dairyman in Argentina will have to come back to Pharms Unlimited for his next calf. Indeed, Pharms Unlimited would be mad to make its cows so they can reproduce their (patented!) technology without a fat fee. So the Third World may see this as just another way to keep them on an unbreakable economic string.
Such technology will spread into the immensely profitable realm of direct consumer goods. The easiest will be items so commonplace that on television they look like simple extensions of what we already have.
Imagine a kitchen cleanser that dissolves waste in those hard-to-get places, maybe even invad ing the grouting of tile in pursuit of fungus. Present "enzymatic" cleaners like Tilex have to be sprayed on and rinsed off. A living variety could patrol on its own, digging very deep, then be rolled up into its holder, lying dormant until needed again. You won't run out of it.
Or ponder a bath mat that slowly tugs itself across the floor, slurping up puddles, deposits of soap and hair spray, hairs, general "human dander." It lives on the stuff, plus an occasional helpful dollop of diet supplements from the otherwise distracted homemakerwho thinks of it as a rug, not a pet.
The opening wedge of such products will be less startling. Invisible, convenient, they'll come innocently, not seeming to announce a revolution. Resident "toothpaste" that does the essential policing up after lunch, and maybe even makes your breath smell, well, not so bad. Stomach guardians that ward off Montezuma's Revenge before you notice a single symptompermanently, be cause the microbes are symbiotic with you, and live throughout your digestive system.
Even insulin cows would become obsolete if we develop microbes that can do the essential task directly in the body. We now can modulate some controlling genes that supervise elaborate biochemical transactions. It seems feasible within a decade or two to tailor these controller genes exquisitely. Then we could produce a capsule containing controller microbes that directly sense the patient's blood glucose level.
This scenario has been suggested by molecular microbiologist Mark O. Martin of Occidental College. Once inserted in the body, such a capsule would respond to glucose changes by making insulin, just as the patient's body should. With a specially designed capsule wall that lets nutrients and glucose in, and insulin out, but keeps the bacteria confined, side effects would be minimal. This could be far more reliable than having patients clumsily self-sample and inject, as they do now.
Such medical improvements face little opposition, particularly if they are hidden inside the body. Overt changes will not be so welcome. Some, though, could be attractive.
Market forces seem likely to spur imaginations. Fad blends easily with fantasy. Maybe there will be a fashion in bio-corduroy, which lives off your sloughed-off skin, perspirationand even, if you like, some of your less agreeable excretions.
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