Jake

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/agriculture.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090210182437.htm =Spread Of Rice Virus Could Be Reduce With Technology= A virus was in the rice in asia and the rice cause tungro disease. The two proteins, RF2a and RF2b, were discovered in Beachy's lab several years ago and are transcription factors known to be important for plant development.Plant viral diseases cause serious economic losses in agriculture, second only to those caused by fungal diseases. Rice Tungro disease is prevalent primarily in south and southeast Asia and accounts for nearly $1.5 billion annual loss in rice production worldwide."Rice Tungro disease is complex and requires interactions between two different viruses, an insect vector and the host. It has taken a great deal of research effort through the years to gain sufficient information and knowledge about the virus and the host to come to the point of developing a type of resistance to the disease. Hopefully, the results of these studies will lead to improved yields of rice in areas of the world most affected by the disease," said Beachy.in a greenhouse trial conducted in partnership with the Philippine Rice Research Institute. This breakthrough provides a clearer understanding of how these two specific transcription factors 'turn on' specific genes in rice plants as well as which proteins help the virus complete the cycle of infection. Understanding the development of disease symptoms is critical for engineering plants that can resist the biological effects of viral pathogen infection.In this case of Rice Tungro disease, viral infection is commonly transmitted by the green leafhopper. Combining genes that overexpress RF2a and RF2b with genes that provide resistance to the insect vector could generate new rice varieties with significantly improved resistance to Rice Tungro disease in vulnerable regions in the world.

I feel that this experiment should be because when it is helping people live more efficiently and healthy this should take place. This must go on if the people are dependent on this crop and this crop spreads a virus around to cause a starvation in this culture. The tungro effected many people and made many crops uneatable. This causing a food shortage by adding the protein to the crops it makes it less chance to get these viruses. the rf2a and rf2b was a success and i believe the this was a good decision to make.