Transcript
In The Woods – Episode 62: Transcripts.
Exploring Forest Biotechnology with Dr. Steve Strauss.
These transcripts are Ai Generated, and edited by humans for accuracy, spelling, punctuation, and syntax errors.
Summary
In this episode of the 'In the Woods' podcast from Oregon State University's Forestry and Natural Resources Extension Program, host Scott Leavengood discusses forest biotechnology with Dr. Steve Strauss. Dr. Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at OSU, shares insights from his 40-year career, including the genetic engineering of trees, the use of Agrobacterium for DNA modification, and the challenges and opportunities in the field. They also address public misconceptions about genetic engineering and its potential to address climate change. The episode concludes with a lightning round of questions about Dr. Strauss's favorite tree species and the impact of CRISPR technology.
Table of Contents
00:00 Introduction to In the Woods Podcast
00:37 Meet Dr. Steve Strauss: A Journey from Brooklyn to Forest Biotechnology
02:26 The Science of Genetic Engineering in Forestry
04:47 Agrobacterium: Nature's Genetic Engineer
07:43 Challenges and Opportunities in Genetic Engineering
10:27 The Future of Genetic Engineering in Forestry
15:37 Lightning Round: Fun and Insightful Questions
17:19 Credits and Acknowledgements
[00:00:00] Introduction to In the Woods Podcast
Lauren Grand: From the Oregon State University's Extension Service, you are listening to In the Woods with the Forestry and Natural Resources Program. This podcast brings the forest to listeners by sharing the stories and voices of forest scientists, land managers, and enthusiastic members of the public. Each episode, we will bring you research and science-based information that aims to offer some insight into what we know and are still learning about forest science and management.
Stick around to discover a new topic related to forests on each episode.
Scott: I'm Scott Leavengood.
I'm with the Forestry & Natural Resources Extension Program at OSU.
[00:00:37] Meet Dr. Steve Strauss: Background and Research
Scott: And one of the things we do is this In The Woods podcast, and we have the pleasure of this episode of having a chance to talk with Dr. Steve Strauss who is one of my colleagues in the College of Forestry, and he's a university distinguished professor of forest biotechnology.
Steve, tell us a bit about your background and the primary areas of focus
of your research.
Dr. Strauss Yeah, thank you Scott. Thanks for having me here. Much appreciated. So I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, so I'm a city boy. And over time I got really interested in nature and trees and started doing some backpacking and that led me to ecology and that led me to forestry.
So that's how I got here. And then over time I got interested in the field of genetics because the science was exploding with possibility and was interesting. And then people started growing hybrid poplars in Oregon and they happened to be really amenable to the genetic engineering biotech techniques that were emerging at the time.
So it was an interesting challenge to try to bring this genetics to sort of make this industry even better, industry that was just starting up.
Teagan: Interesting. I can what initially inspired you to get into this area of research?
Dr. Strauss Yeah, the inspiration was definitely I wanted to save the world, so like a lot of people in my generation and probably yours huge environmental problems facing us.
And the thinking was that we need science sure to tell us what to do, how to do it better, how to do it more efficiently. And so that was my motivation is to try to contribute to producing wood producing trees in a more environmentally sound manner.
Teagan: Sweet. If you don't mind me asking one more question, how long have you, how long have you been doing this type of research?
Dr. Strauss I've been, this is my 40th year at Oregon State and I got my PhD in 1985. So I've been at this a while.
[00:02:26] Genetic Engineering in Forestry
Scott: Are there historical examples of how humans have modified plants before modern biotechnology? How do you describe to people the mechanics of genetic modification?
Dr. Strauss I have a class that I've taught for many, many years here about biotech and society and the interactions thereof, the scientific potential, the social issues, acceptance. And how it can have value.
Prior to the modern error, where we're doing what we're calling genetic engineering we modified DNA radically, but we didn't pull it out of the cell and study it and sequence it and maybe rearrange it and put it back in. We modified it in the cell by selecting unusual mutant plants that occurred in nature or we made hybrids between species on different continents to try to produce lots of diversity and changes in the DNA, but it's happening inside the plant. In this era, we have the scientific technology to pull the DNA out and these days rather efficiently sequence it. We can determine your genome for a few hundred dollars and basically a few hours.
And that was of course, unthinkable 50 years ago. Now we can see how the natural DNA of wild or domesticated plants could be modified, but it might take a long time through conventional breeding.
Or if you wanna move one gene from one species to another for some reason. To enhance nutrition, give it other properties that we could do a horizontal gene transfer that would be essentially impossible with conventional breeding. Once you have DNA you want to put into a plant you have to somehow get it in a cell. And then that cell that's modified in some way has to turn back into a plant. Into an organism. And those are two problems. They're a a set of separate problems. So we use agrobacterium to put it in.
'cause it's a natural plant genetic engineer. And then we usually use things like plant hormones to get those modified cells to regenerate, to divide and start to produce a multicellular organism.
And so there's a lot of plant physiology that goes into how you do that ladder step. And there's also a lot of different kinds of strains of agrobacterium and ways to use it and modify them and modify the genetic engineer itself. In fact, that's a lot of what we do in my laboratory these days is find better strains of agrobacterium, figure out how they work and modify them to, for higher efficiency.
[00:04:47] Agrobacterium: Nature's Genetic Engineer
Teagan: How does Agrobacterium modify plant DNA and how can this modification be considered natural in your opinion?
Dr. Strauss So, like, I, like I was starting to say Agrobacterium is a natural genetic engineer. Yeah.
There's no question about that. It's in nature and it does, its living by putting its DNA into a plant and getting it to turn into a home for the bacterium. So it is natural. And in fact, one, now we sequence genomes of everything right. so we have the genomes and thousands and thousands of plants and when you look at on a computer, you see Agrobacterium has actually inserted DNA into plants millions of years ago.
That became part of their genome. That just evolved with the plants. So it's really been around, it's really been doing thing for a very, very long time. And so what we're doing is taking this natural process and it does it very efficiently because it's evolved to do it efficiently.
Teagan: Yeah.
Dr. Strauss So we take that and we tweak the gene so it doesn't make galls anymore.
We don't wanna home for the bacteria, we just want to use it to transfer genes in so we can get genes in for whatever trait or scientific purposes and have a healthy, normal plant.
The other ways of doing this are more physical. Like you literally can bombard DNA in. There's a thing called the gene gun.
So whenever I tell people about this, you aren't serious. Are you're shooting? No, we're serious. People sometimes shoot DNA into plants. Into cells. You have sort of micro shrapnel that's coated with DNA and you literally shoot it in at high speed, penetrates a few cell layers deep, and the DNA dissolves off and some low rate, it goes into plant genomes and becomes a part . So people don't use that much because it's so brute force. Yeah, so Agrobacterium is much more efficient and when genes come in, they tend to be much more intact, not pieces of DNA shrapnel. So that's, that's the preferred way to do it all over the world, every crop.
Teagan: And I would assume using agrobacterium, it's far more, it's far more predictable than something like the gene gun.
Dr. Strauss It is, yeah. You grow and culture it in a certain way. You induce the gene transfer. We know what chemical, so an agrobacterium in the environment senses wounded plants. They can only transfer DNA when there's a little micro wound, so it senses that by the chemicals, plants exude when they're wounded.
So genetic engineers put that chemical right in the, in the medium. We don't wait for the wound. And so that turns the bacterium on, literally starts transferring its DNA, so it's much more efficient. People started to understand agrobacterium better. In terms of how its genetic mechanisms work. We're talking about the sixties and seventies when we really understood it enough to sort of manipulate it and use it to our benefit.
And then the first genetically engineered plant ever in the world was 19 84, 85. So that's, that's about the timeframe mid 80, mid 1980s for that.
Scott: Okay.
Interesting. Maybe from more of a context of climate change.
[00:07:43] Challenges and Opportunities in Genetic Engineering
Scott: Do you think misconceptions affect the ability of society to use genetic engineering technology to help plants adapt to rapid climate change?
Dr. Strauss There's no question about it. The it's really a struggle to think about how you could use these techniques of genetic modification in a timely manner.
Or to be able to use them, where you might want to develop, for example a emerald ash, bore resistant ash for Oregon, which is a public interest thing. There is not the money to overcome the regulatory hurdles in a timely manner.
There's not the money to invest in the research in a timely manner. It's just it's almost irrelevant. So my, my, my feeling is that regulatory gridlock are so great, they've taken this very powerful science and technology and made it almost irrelevant.
And if you can produce a. Heat tolerant tree that might survive, a heat wave, whereas non-modified trees would, you could show it to them. I think they're gonna say, cool, let's do that. So I think if we can get products out that show the benefits, I think people will accept it.
Scott: I think, yeah, Steve, you've already addressed this in some ways, more about how plant transformation techniques might help address climate change related impacts for agriculture and forestry. You gave the one example of a tree species that could be resistant to say, our next heat dome.
Are there other other examples you can think of how these techniques might help again, address climate change related impacts?
Dr. Strauss Yeah. One thing, one thing climate change does is it tends to change and promote pests and pathogens. And so, and we know a lot about the genes that are involved in resistance to different pests and pathogens.
So that's not directly temperature, but that's something that deals with a consequence of climate change. Spreading pest populations. Say drought and stress. A drought and heat stress are more complicated traits. Often pest resistance has a simpler genetic basis.
In a, in, biotech is a powerful method. But it's not a replacement for conventional breeding. You know where you have so many diff you have about 30,000 genes in a genome, and genetic engineering tends to work with a half dozen . so you need the kind of conventional breeding foundation.
So it's some combination that will be most useful, putting those together. And I, as I mentioned, the problem is that one of them is highly controlled by the government and these market forces. And the other one is really free to operate.
When you make a new hybrid,
Scott: conventional techniques,
Dr. Strauss conventional you make a new hybrid, you just plant it in the world and you don't gotta file any reports or get permission or get sued by Greenpeace or anything like that.
[00:10:27] The Future of Genetic Engineering in Forestry
Scott: last question that I have here is, where do you see the greatest opportunities and of course the greatest challenges for your field of research in the next say, five to 10 years? If you've got the funding, if you've got the regulations.
Is there something else you haven't touched on?
Dr. Strauss One of the challenges is I mentioned earlier. Doing genetic engineering requires putting genes into cells and getting those cells to regenerate. And it turns out in trees, actually many crops, but trees are probably the worst. That's really hard.
So what you're essentially doing is taking like a cell from a leaf and convincing it, it should start making roots and shoots and become a new tree again. And it thought it was gonna be a leaf for the rest of its life till it, went to the leaf litter and died. So you're trying to reprogram it?
Scott: Yeah.
Dr. Strauss And that's really hard to do. And, the fact that we can do it at all is a small miracle. That's something that's incredibly hard to do in animals, but it's also very hard in plants. And this, the biology of what happens during regeneration and how to kind of, manipulate us.
So it works efficiently is something we work on in a lot of labs trying to solve that problem. So that's a big challenge to understand it and then to tweak it. Right now if you told me Steve, I've got a million dollars, go make an emerald ash bore-resistant ash, I'd probably have to spend more than a million dollars figuring out how to do the gene transfer and the regeneration because we don't really know how to do it and we don't understand enough of the science of it.
Wow. So I'd probably even argue, Scott I'll work on a different species that's faster. Yeah. Okay. And then we'll come back to Ash in five years. So I think there's a lot of science related to regeneration in particular. Also agrobacterium and gene transfer. That's a big challenge, but I think we have techniques that are effective and we can make progress ; because of politics, we've made it really hard to move forward. So how do you change that? How do you change these laws is really, really difficult.
Scott: Anything else that you wanted to ask Tegan?
Teagan: My final question usually is just.
If you were to leave, the viewers, the listeners with anything from what we discussed today or given your research and you want the world to hear, have something to think about, what would that be?
Dr. Strauss I guess the first thing is, I'm a scientist. I've signed on to this 'cause I believe it's it's the best way of knowing the world. Free of your biases and ideologies. Sure. So I think we need to invest in science and keep doing it. And it's also not something you can just turn on and off.
If you stop investing in science for the next five years you're not gonna have. Trained people who can really do it.
Teagan: Yeah.
Dr. Strauss A lot of people already are leaving the field because of what's happening at federal agencies and with grants. So you got to keep investing in science and investing in the workforce.
The other thing is we have to figure out how to, how to get out of our own way better, which I've talked about several times. So that's a real challenge. And in a paper I wrote last year, we need sort of biological innovation and we need social innovation. Yeah. We need to do things smarter and faster.
And more science based, and we haven't quite come together to figure that out. And so I hope we can do that, otherwise all the great science won't get a chance to do much.
Teagan: And with that another very brief question is, I think public distrust in the scientific community is, really high right now.
Dr. Strauss Seems it's been growing lately.
Teagan: How would you suggest. Moving forward as far as like science communication goes, does it take like, someone like me who's not super familiar with the science, but is communicating and helping people like you communicate these things to the world? Or do you think that scientists have the power to communicate these things themselves and really, spread that information?
Dr. Strauss I think in in the world where we're in, I think scientists need to be dedicated to communicating with the public, and that's the National Science Foundation. Whenever they give you a grant, they have a thing called Broader Impacts , where you need to bring students into your lab.
You need to go talk at the Garden Club. So that's already kind of wired into the system that, scientists need to get out there. But there's so much out there now. You need to be smart about it. Kind of like you guys are doing and we're trying to do in our NSF funded project, I think scientists have to be there, but they really need a team.
Teagan: Yeah.
Dr. Strauss And we need to invest in it.
So it's out there. I think people still the, when you look at ratings of credibility, scientists are still high. It's come down over the years. Yeah. But, but it's not compared to others. Yeah. Compared to others. People need science. They do. And they know that they do. And we have to keep earning that. Unfortunately Teagan, our generation is leaving your generation with some huge challenges. Yep. All I can say is I'm sorry and good luck.
Teagan: Yeah. Well, thank you. I think there are a lot of younger people, younger scientists who wanna get into this field and are probably very interested, but unsure.
What advice do you have to them?
Dr. Strauss I'd just say if you see something that excites you in the news or in a Google search, don't hesitate to contact the scientists of the lab and say, Hey, how do I get involved?
We've, trained hundreds of students who come in our laboratory and learn, and it's built a set up a career for many of them, so don't hesitate to get involved.
Teagan: Well thank you for that perspective.
Scott: . yeah.
[00:15:37] Lightning Round
Scott: So for the In the Woods podcast, we always wrap things up with a few questions in what we call the lightning round.
[Musical Interlude]
Scott: And the first question is always. What is your favorite tree species?
Dr. Strauss Well, it's gotta be poplars,
Scott: gotta be poplar.
Dr. Strauss So that's like cottonwood and aspens. They're so beautiful and they're such great scientific subjects. Easy,
Scott: easy, easy. I thought it might be. And then the second question, what's a unique tool that you use that helps you with your work?
Dr. Strauss You know the answer there has to be CRISPR.
Scott: Okay?
Dr. Strauss This is this thing that allows you to change any specific gene in the genome with pretty much a hundred percent efficiency.
Wow. It's just extraordinary, and it works everywhere. It works in every organism. It's very, very broad. So thank you CRISPR.
Scott: Okay.
Okay. Lastly, what other resources can you share for a listener that would like to learn more about your research?
Dr. Strauss The best thing would be we have a good website at Oregon State. You could just Google Steve Strauss, Oregon State University. We have all the presentations, my students, my postdocs, myself have given, and you can just see what we're doing and what we're saying, including some of the radical things about changing some of the laws to allow innovation to go forward.
It's all written down, all in a bunch of very accessible PowerPoints. And so take, and you'd also learn about our values and our principles. We operate by, it's all on our nice Oregon State website, so have a look.
Scott: Excellent. Yes, Steve, thanks so much for spending some time with us today and for sharing your knowledge with our listeners.
Dr. Strauss Scott, thank you very much, Tegan. Thank you. Really enjoyed the conversation and.
Go Beav's.
Teagan: Go Beav's. Yeah.
Sweet.
Cut.
[00:17:19] Conclusion and Credits
Lauren Grand: The In The Woods Podcast is produced by Lauren Grand, Jacob Putney, and Scott Leavengood, who are all members of the Oregon State University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension team. Other members of the team who've been involved in the podcast include Carrie Berger. Jason O'Brien and Steven Fitzgerald episodes are edited and produced by Carrie Cantrell.
Music for In the Woods was composed by Jeffrey Heino and graphic design was created by Christina Reh. Funding for In the Woods is provided by Oregon State University Forestry Natural Resources Extension, the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, and the USDA Renewable Resources Extension Act funding. We hope you enjoyed the episode and we can't wait to talk to you again next month.
Until then, what's in your woods?
In this episode of the 'In the Woods' podcast from Oregon State University's Forestry and Natural Resources Extension Program, host Scott Leavengood discusses forest biotechnology with Dr. Steve Strauss. Dr. Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at OSU, shares insights from his 40-year career, including the genetic engineering of trees, the use of Agrobacterium for DNA modification, and the challenges and opportunities in the field. They also address public misconceptions about genetic engineering and its potential to address climate change. The episode concludes with a lightning round of questions about Dr. Strauss's favorite tree species and the impact of CRISPR technology.
