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Thomas William Dunlop

As a research scientist with a farming background I was attracted to plant biotechnology when I was going through uni at Glasgow in the late 80s. Even at that time the Plant biotechnologists were spending a lot of time developing pesticide resistant crops over over strategies aimed towards creating crops that could tolerate more extreme growing conditions or increased the nutritional value of individual crops. So much so I had arguments with some of lecturers which led me to be turned off from the whole field ( I am a Molecular Biologist by degree, and research training and subsequent career).

So from this point of view the plant biotechnology industry is only reaping the bitter harvest of public which they sowed over twenty years ago.

Saying that I hope that SG does not imposed a blanket ban on GM research in Scotland, but could help nudge it in the direction of more ethical research goals. Such as food crop strategies mentioned above, but also, for example, current efforts to reverse engineer photosynthesis into providing sources of green energy~ both immediate, by the capture of electron currents generated by photon capture to generate electricty and long term storage as carbohydrates or raw gases (splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen) to be used as fuel for replacement of hydrocrabons. In that research there is need to study mutant plants in order to under the process of photosynthesis more thoroughly

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