The main purpose of Zhao Yi's visit to the Qingnong Biological Laboratory this time was, firstly, to produce special strains for his own Baiwei fruit wine, and secondly, he hoped that the Qingnong Laboratory could cultivate improved varieties of various fruits at home and around the world.
Although several fruits sent by the agricultural and animal husbandry company are quite famous in China, they have not reached the top international level, and Zhao Yi hopes that the Qingnong Biological Laboratory can improve the transformation of these fruits, whether in terms of fruit quality. Fruit yield and climate adaptability range all need to be carefully improved.
There are generally two ways to improve fruits, one is the traditional improvement method, and the other is the genetic modification method.
The traditional improvement method is to use hybridization and artificial selection. First, cross plant subspecies with excellent traits, select plants with excellent traits from the obtained plants, and then use these for cross-breeding.
Select plants with better traits and repeat the above process until you get the plants you want. Then test the seeds produced by the plants and select the ones with stable expression of traits as the final finished seeds.
This method is actually technically more reliable, but the cultivation cycle is very long, and the target plant may not be able to be cultivated in the end. Therefore, this method is reliable in means, but the results are unreliable.
What Zhao Yi lacks now is time. It is impossible for the Qingnong Biological Laboratory to slowly cultivate it by himself. It is not known how long it will take, and it is uncertain what the final result will be, so Zhao Yi decided to use genetic modification.
The discussion about genetic crops in later generations can be said to be heated. Although they have been arguing for many years, there is no clear conclusion in the end.
Compared with traditional breeding methods, genetic modification does have some hidden dangers, which may cause genetic contamination, cross-species spread of genes, etc. If defective genes are spread across species, the consequences will be unimaginable.
We all know about the cross-species transmission of viruses and bacteria. The most typical one is plague. Plague is a bacterial disease. Because mice have been fighting this bacteria for a long time, they have developed immunity in the group.
However, this bacterium did not spread to humans at first, which means that humans did not have immunity to this bacterium at the beginning. Therefore, once the plague spread to humans across species and caused harm to humans, since humans do not have the immunity to this bacterium, Immunity will cause mass deaths in humans.
There are countless large-scale plagues caused by plague in human history, as well as the subsequent "SARS" and so on, all of which are the result.
The cross-species transmission of genes is more dangerous, and is often covert. It will not show up at first. After a period of time, the genes transmitted from this cross-species may produce some expressions that are not conducive to the native species. .
At a mild level, it may cause damage to physiological functions; at a more serious level, the defective gene may be transmitted to the next generation, causing irreparable losses.
This is why later generations say that there is no problem in eating genetically modified soybeans now, but it does not mean that there will be no root causes of problems in the future. This concern is still caused by human beings' immaturity and insufficient understanding of genetic technology.
We have only known about genes for less than a hundred years, and our understanding of genes is still limited. In the face of this limited understanding, errors and omissions will inevitably occur.
In the face of this danger, the best way is not to use it. This is the most conservative way. However, if we are so conservative, we will not be able to make substantial breakthroughs in genetic technology, and understanding will be relatively slow.
If there is no particularly urgent situation, there is no problem in doing so, but if the situation is very bad, for example, as the global population increases and there is not enough food for human consumption, what should I do? It is impossible to let them fend for themselves. At this time, Genetic technology is needed.
Because the characteristic of genetic technology is that it can achieve special characteristics that cannot be cultivated by traditional breeding methods, because these special characteristics are transplanted from other species.
In addition, another characteristic is that transgenics are more targeted and can often be more targeted than traditional breeding methods.
In the 1980s, genetic technology was still in its infancy, both at home and abroad. No mature genetically modified products have yet been released, even the improved loam grass and improved emperor cultivated by Zhao Yi's agricultural and animal husbandry company and environmental management company. Bamboo and grass are not genetically modified.
They use gene mutation technology. This technology is still a traditional breeding method in a strict sense. However, mutations are normally uncontrollable, and the probability of producing target samples is very low, almost as low as zero. It is precisely because of this Characteristics, breeding using genetic mutation technology is also rare.
We all know that when space is launched, various countries will also send plant seeds into space. The purpose of this is to hope that the seeds can mutate under space rays, and then select some beneficial mutations from them, and then increase the number of species subspecies.
The most intuitive thing is that we see more and more strange fruits in the market. Although we all know the species, some are much larger than normal fruits or vegetables, and some are much smaller.
This is due to the space seed mutation experiment. You may have eaten plants grown in space without knowing it.
This method of gene mutation is produced by the internal genes of the plant. It is not considered an external gene, so there is no problem of cross-species transmission. It is relatively safe, but this method is more uncertain than the cross-breeding method. , we can only randomly cultivate and select some seeds that are beneficial to human beings.
Zhao Yi still used Zhou Ling's help to have a complete set of methods to ensure the controllability of genetic mutations and achieve targeted cultivation.
However, this method is not a universal method. In other words, for a species, its mutation method is specific, and it is a conditional induction customized according to the species' genes. If the number of modified species is limited, such as loam grass, emperor bamboo grass, There are not many types of Luxi cattle, cashmere goats, dairy cows, etc. Zhao Yi is also willing to customize gene mutation induction methods for them one by one.
But this time genetic modification of fruits will not work. There are too many types of fruits in the world. Not only fruits, but also some crops or other economic crops may be modified in the future. Zhao Yi cannot mutate genes on them one by one. Customization of the induction method, in that case, Zhao Yi would need to stay in the biological laboratory all the time.
So this time Zhao Yi needed to come up with a reliable genetic modification technology to directly modify the genes of animals and plants.
Genetic modification technology is a cutting-edge technology in the world. Just a breakthrough in the understanding of genes has resulted in many Nobel Prizes in Biology.
In order to ensure safety and reliability, the genetic modification technology that Zhao Yi came up with is definitely not a semi-finished product, and before coming up with the genetic modification technology, it is necessary to clarify human understanding of genes, which is expected to produce a large number of related papers.
Zhao Yi himself has stopped showing up in academia. If he was just a pure scholar, there would be no problem in doing so. No scholar would dislike having too many academic papers of his own.
But now Zhao Yi has left academia and plunged into the business world. If he were an ordinary businessman, there would be no problem, but now he has begun to influence the domestic economic order.
The international economic order will be affected in the near future. Under this premise, the lower your visibility, the better. It is best to give the impression to the outside world that you are a person with some achievements in the field of mathematics.
Originally, when Zhao started his business, he planned to name all his companies Umbrella XXX Company, but just for this consideration, he later decided to name each company differently, and even contacted the national industrial and commercial department. , do not publish his shares in these companies.
At first, the industrial and commercial departments were not happy. Fortunately, we are not in the later generations where the Internet is developed, so there will be no adverse consequences. However, now Zhao Yi's companies are becoming more and more influential in the country, and there is still no one with regard to the status of private capital in the country. The final statement is that in order to reduce unnecessary trouble, the industrial and commercial authorities have now consciously concealed Zhao Yi's company shares.
At least from an official perspective, it is not clear that these companies are all owned by the same person. The impression given to the outside world is that these companies have no special relationship between them except for cooperative relationships. This is what Zhao Yi wants.
If this is the case, some readers may be worried about the protagonist's personal safety. In fact, Zhao Yi has considered this a long time ago, otherwise why would he have to make a big bomb in the field of mathematics if he has nothing to do.
With his achievements in Fermat's Last Theorem, he successfully received a Fields Medal. This award is known as the Nobel in mathematics and is the crown in the field of mathematics.
With this award in hand, he is no longer an unknown person. You have to consider the consequences of attacking such a person. Besides, Zhao Yi's current security is not very good because there is currently no large-scale opening up in the country.
Only special economic zones have been set up in a few places along the coast, and foreign forces cannot yet extend their hands. In the future, Zhao Yi will gradually strengthen his security level.
Closer to home, Zhao Yi and Wang Ergou talked about their plans. At first, Wang Ergou was also worried. The main point was that the current understanding of genes is not comprehensive enough, and genetic modification technology has just begun to develop, and it may not be able to achieve what it should be. The effect is achieved, and even if it is achieved, the consequences are not very clear.
The implication is to persuade Zhao Yixian to wait and wait until humans have a more comprehensive understanding of genes and genetic modification technology is more mature before starting his plan. Before, it was possible to conduct relevant research on genes, but there was no need for market application.
Zhao Yi knew that Wang Ergou's words were mature and prudent. The current understanding of genes was indeed incomplete, and the transformation technology was not yet mature. He could only do some experiments in the laboratory.
But with him here, these problems are no longer a problem. Not only does he have a more comprehensive understanding of genes, he also has mature genetic modification technology, and he also has a complete set of technologies for genetic testing. What Wang Ergou said All difficulties are no longer difficulties. (End of chapter)