Using biotechnology to improve human health

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

In 2000, it was announced that scientists had successfully inserted the gene for somatotrophin, a human hormone that is used to treat dwarfism, into the chloroplasts of tobacco plants. Somatotrophin is normally produced by genetically modified bacteria in fermenters, a complicated and costly process. This development with plants opens up a much cheaper alternative for production of this hormone and perhaps others.