Beyond Food and Drugs, Biotech Fights Pollution

On the site of a former hat factory in Danbury, Conn., a stand of genetically altered cottonwood trees sucks mercury from the contaminated soil.

Across the continent in California, researchers use transgenic Indian mustard plants to soak up dangerously high selenium deposits caused by irrigation of the nation's bread basket.

Still others are engineering trees to retain more carbon and thus combat global warming.

The gene jockeys conducting these exotic experiments envision a future in which plants can be used as an inexpensive, safer and more effective way of disposing of pollution.

"Trees are really made for this ... we just have to trick them to do what we want them to do," said Richard Meagher, whose University of Georgia students went to Danbury in 2003 as part of the most advanced, open-air experiment in the United States involving trees genetically engineered to eat pollution.

Biologists for decades have been trying to exploit the genetic mechanisms that let microscopic bugs survive in polluted places where most living things die.

Indeed, the 1980 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed the so-called "patenting of life" that launched the biotechnology industry centered on bacteria genetically engineered to clean oil spills.

But simply dumping engineered bugs on polluted sites has its dangers and drawbacks. Elements like mercury can't be broken down into harmless bits like oil, so researchers have turned to engineering plants to draw pollutants out of the ground.