Talking Biotech is a weekly podcast that uncovers the stories, ideas and research of people at the frontier of biology and engineering.
Each episode explores how science and technology will transform agriculture, protect the environment, and feed 10 billion people by 2050.
Interviews are led by Dr. Kevin Folta, a professor of molecular biology and genomics.
Talking Biotech Podcast 381
Status of the Biotech Salmon
Silvia Wulf, President and CEO of AquaAdvantage
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Kevin Folta: [00:00:00] Hi everybody and welcome to this week's Talking Biotech podcast by Colabra. And over the last several years, it's been a remarkable time for biotechnology the Covid vaccines. They showed the power of rapid response to a viral threat and there's been cancers and diseases like sickle cell disease that are being either treated or maybe even cured with modern biotechnology approaches.
And we talked about a lot of those here on the. Genetically engineered eggplant that's benefiting farmers in Bangladesh. The first crop of golden rice is in the ground and will start to reverse vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines and soon other countries. So exciting times and genetic crops in animals are in development all over the world now, including many that are being developed by gene editing.
Now, eight years ago when this podcast started, Most of these technologies were almost considered DOA as public perception, disinformation, [00:01:00] and a generally negative social media climate. They ruled the zeitgeist and despite the hard evidence that showed the tremendous benefits, and this is what really pressed me into doing this podcast in the first place.
How do we change? How do we flip it? How do we get the slow creep of fear fatigue to move a little bit faster and show people the visible promise of really cool science that can benefit people and the planet. Now one of the greatest Bena fish years might be the Aqua Advantage salmon. It's a genetically engineered salmon that was first developed in 1989.
I remember this paper in science in a journal club that I took back then. So this is old technology today, however you might find it in one of your favorite seafood. Re. Now, this regulatory road was long and I've had folks on the podcast going [00:02:00] all the way back to 2015 or so. But today, this innovation, it's finally proving its benefits as a pioneer technology and not just in producing a product that people like, but in really paving the.
For public acceptance of more biotech products that can show good sustainability benefits. So today's guest is Sylvia Wolf. She's the president and c e o of AquaBounty. So welcome to the podcast, Sylvia. Thanks
Sylvia Wulf: Kevin.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, it's really nice to have you back because I think the last time we spoke together was almost four years ago, and you know, time flies.
In that timeframe, there's been so many developments and I really wanted to have you back on the podcast to talk about where the Aqua Advantage Salmon is and what it is, and really some of the changes that we've sensed over the last couple years with respect to climate regarding this particular innovation.
So let's start at the beginning. [00:03:00] And Salmon, everybody, like salmon, it's a universally appreciated. It has excellent health properties. Salmon isn't broken, so why do we need an aqua vantage salmon?
Sylvia Wulf: There are a couple reasons why we believe that our salmon, our genetically engineered salmon is important.
For the future, and that is salmon production isn't keeping up with salmon demand and as a healthy, nutritious protein, we need to make sure that we're constantly filling that protein gap as populations grow. And we all know that we have a looming. Population of almost between nine and 10 billion people.
And as that population increases, protein will be an increasingly important component of the diet. And so being able to keep up with that demand is critical.
Kevin Folta: And what is the genetic engineering step that really separates the aqua advantage salmon from say, a conventional salmon? . [00:04:00]
Sylvia Wulf: The genesis was a researcher at Memorial University was looking for a way to create a salmon that was more resilient to wild or extreme temperature changes in net pens in the ocean.
Because what ends up happening is as those temperatures change, those very early stages, the salmon is much more vulnerable. So it either stops eating, Or there are high mortality rates. So what he was doing was trying to develop an Atlantic salmon that was very resilient and could survive under those extreme conditions.
So now we fast forward to today. and the way that we farm our salmon, which is a land-based recirculating aquaculture system, and that salmon is perfectly designed to thrive in a precision farming environment. And so we now have a salmon that we, that grows faster, which means we produce more of a healthy salmon with the same resources [00:05:00] and it eats less to put on the same biomass.
And as we all know, you know, creating more with. Is exactly what we need to be thinking about globally.
Kevin Folta: and how much of the effect for, with the Aqua Advantage salmon is really a, a lack of a response to seasonal fluctuations and growth. So the wild salmon has these surges and growth that happen during certain times of year and then other times where it contracts is, well, I mean at least where size is not as rapid.
Right. Growth ceases. So is that really the big difference between the Aqua Advantage and a standard? .
Sylvia Wulf: Well, there's two types of salmon that we can, that we consume. The majority of salmon is farm salmon in net pens. And they're typically farmed in cold water off the coast of Chile, Canada, Scotland, Norway, wild salmon on the other hand spawn and rivers, and then.
you know, make their way to the ocean. And those are controlled by quotas. And so [00:06:00] that's only about 3% of the consumption in the us The majority of salmon are farm Atlantic salmon. And so what we're seeing is a constant shrinking of the ability to produce farm salmon. And that's where our method of farming and our salmon can begin to fill that gap.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, that's a really good point. So can you tell me more about this? So you said 3% are naturally occurring wild salmon. Yeah. So 97% are coming out of these farmed operations. So what are the big differences between the farming and nets versus inland tank farming? , well,
Sylvia Wulf: there's several different impact from the way that we farm.
So if you think about net pens, there's so they're ex, they're, those salmon are exposed to the same weather conditions that the researcher at Memorial was trying to solve for. So we've had you know, warming oceans acidification, and so those salmon are having to deal with the [00:07:00] changes in the ocean and the changes in temperature and climate.
Our salmon is fill is is raised in a land-based tank farm, so those facilities are bios secure. So we don't need to treat them for disease, et cetera. The way that, you know, simply because they're exposed in a net pen, they could have to be treated for things like salmon, anemia. Ours are protected.
So it's a precision method of. And a very controlled environment where you just can't control the ocean.
Kevin Folta: What are the major advantages in sustainability and the changing inputs that you need to use when you use an aqua advantage? Salmon.
Sylvia Wulf: Because we are being raised in a land-based tank farm using biofiltration or what we call Raz recirculating aquaculture systems.
We are recycling almost in our current facility, which is a dated facility. Almost [00:08:00] 97% of the water in the facility that we're building in Ohio will be above 99%. So we're able to recycle the. Which is a precious resource. That's number one. Number two, we're growing because our growth rates are faster than a traditional or conventional Atlantic salmon.
We're able to produce more of a healthy protein with the same investment in the same footprint. . And then thirdly, our salmon are very efficient in terms of how they turn their feed into biomass. And so we're actually able to produce more of a healthy protein with less feed. And so as you think about what we think about as a circular economy , certainly we're u producing more with less.
And then we look at utilization of all aspects of the salmon, not simply the salmon that's turned into a filet and shows up on a consumer's plate. We we're utilizing the blood, we're utilizing all of the waste streams, for example, [00:09:00] fish waste as fertilizer. And then we use, we're looking at using output of, of what we call awful, the guts, et cetera.
They are, they can either be turned into pet food or in fact, we're working with several universities to turn those into biogas. And so when we think about what we can do with a land-based operation, we can actually utilize. All as all components of that salmon with fewer resources to produce that healthy protein.
That's really
Kevin Folta: cool. I one. But you know, online, if you look on Twitter and I follow you on Twitter and follow the salmon story on Twitter, and one of the big concerns you constantly see come up is that this fish is going to escape and affect natural populations and growing fast will dominate the oceans.
And so what are the safeguards that are in place that severely limit that possib? .
Sylvia Wulf: Well, the first thing I'd like to say is no one has ever proven that there would be a detrimental effect. That being said, we don't raise our salmon [00:10:00] anywhere near where. Natural populations exist. We believe that raising our salmon in the heartland, close to consumption is actually a very environmentally responsible approach.
And what I mean by that is it's. we raise in agriculturally oriented communities because as I said, we wanna utilize all aspects. So you think about fertilizer for farmland that surrounds our farms. So that's number one. We don't locate our farms near wild population or near wild populations. And the second is we are very responsible in terms of.
We build in containment, physical containment in all of our farms so that, you know, should a fish jump out of a tank, number one, it probably wouldn't survive. Number two, the temperatures don't. Lend itself to survival. But we would stop it from being able to escape our facility. And [00:11:00] thirdly, we employ what we call biological containment in that our fish are sterile females, and we have continued to improve the percentage of sterility.
Sometimes we've been attacked saying, well, there's still a 2% potential for a non-steroid. Female. But we have continued to improve that percentage. And so those fish are sterile females, so even should they escape, number one, they probably couldn't survive. Number two, even if they did, they couldn't reproduce.
So that's a bit of a specious criticism because we take our responsibility very, very serious.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, and I think most people don't appreciate it's a long flop to the Atlantic Ocean . It
Sylvia Wulf: is a lot. I've always said, unless they sprout wings or grow legs, I'm really not sure they're going to be able to affect a wild population.
Kevin Folta: No. Very good. So we're speaking with Sylvia Wolf. She's the president and c e O of AquaBounty, and we're talking about the genetic innovation of [00:12:00] the AquaBounty salmon, which is finally coming to. A source near you. So this is the Talking Biotech podcast by Collabora, and we'll be back in just a moment. Now we're back on collaborative's talking biotech podcast.
We're speaking with Sylvia Wolf. She's the president and c e o of Aqua Bounty. And we're talking about the innovation of the Aqua Bounty salmon. And this has been a innovation that's been in the pipeline for a long time. So last time we talked, I think was March, 2019, pre pandemic and, well, at least before.
Yeah. You know, so the salmon was just coming to. . And how long was that journey from the original proof of concept experiments?
Sylvia Wulf: It was almost 30 years. So we had obviously the research that went on to do the genetic engineering. And then after that took place because we were the first to ask for approval for human consumption we had [00:13:00] 25 years of the regulatory approval process and really charting a course and working closely with the regulatory bodies as they began to think about how do we.
That this product is in fact safe for human consumption. And so that took 25 years.
Kevin Folta: And what were the primary reasons that there was such a long regulatory decision as
Sylvia Wulf: we would all want and hope for our regulators put human safety above all considerations and. Our regulatory bodies have a lot of respect because they really do care about making sure that what they're doing doesn't have an unintended negative consequence.
And so what was required was they needed to look at the pathology. They needed to look at allergenicity toxicity. But most importantly, they needed to make sure that the genetic structure was stable from one generation to the next. And that's almost a two [00:14:00] year cycle. So to, to demonstrate that genetic stability we had to provide salmon from different generations.
And so that's another reason that the, the approval process took so long. And again, I commend you know, the fda, health Canada, and now we're approved in. Because they were very deliberate about making sure that the product was safe.
Kevin Folta: And there has been a lot of criticism about this. Mostly social media outrage by non-experts, but, since our listeners are in that space and pay attention and participate in the public dialogue.
What were some of the most unfounded but frequent concerns that were levied by critics? And can you help our audience respond to them?
Sylvia Wulf: Well, the, the the criticisms originally targeted safety. But given the rigor and the timeline of all of the safety [00:15:00] testing by the regulatory bodies, it was clear to our critics that they really couldn't talk about safety because that sort of asked and answered.
The second was Labeling. So making sure that consumers in fact, knew they were eating a genetically engineered product. And we've always said, stated that we're proud of the fact that we're genetically engineered and it is a safe. Healthy, nutritious product. So we always intended to label our product.
We said that even prior to passage of the National Bioengineered Disclosure Act. When F D A, when U S D A ruled on what the labeling would look like and would be required, you know, we, we said that's exactly what we plan to do. So labeling was a concern. And then most recently it's escape. And as you and I just discussed, Kevin, There's no chance of escape.
And even if there was, no one's ever proved harm. And so that's another way to [00:16:00] create doubt in the consumer's mind. But the reality is we wanna protect our salmon and so we wanna make sure that they are contained in that facility and that that's good for the salmon, it's good for the environment and it's good for the.
Kevin Folta: Oh, that's really great. So where, when did the fish actually come to market? When available to the public? And where is it being sold now?
Sylvia Wulf: So we began farming our genetically engineered AquaBounty salmon in 2019. It took us a little over. 26 months to harvest. And that meant we start, we brought that salmon to market in 20 20, 21, and we have been harvesting continually since that point in time.
And every fish that we've harvested has been sold. And so our farm in Indiana is in continuous production. And we, we also farm two batches [00:17:00] of our salmon. our facility on Prince Edward Island and all of those salmon were sold as well. And the feedback that we've had is it's high quality salmon, it, you know, the taste profile, the appearance, et cetera.
It is identical to high quality Atlantic salmon.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. So where is it being sold? Is it something that I as a consumer can go buy at Walmart or Alberts? . Now,
Sylvia Wulf: we, as we have always stated, the most salmon is sold for into the food service or away from home channels. And so we focused on primarily food service and in institutional buyers.
And so we work with several seafood distributors primarily in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and Chicago. That sell into restaurants, hotels those types of venues. Because we operate a very small farm, we don't marry up well with big retailers. We continue to have [00:18:00] discussions with them because this really does align with what they need in terms of consistent source of supply and stable.
Cost structures. So as we begin to bring our next pharma online, we would be focused on expanding into the retail channel. .
Kevin Folta: Okay. Yeah, that's kind of disappointing because I know that, you know, me and, and most of the listeners would be excited to go out and buy one . I was the first one in line for an Arctic apple.
You know, that just is the way it goes, I think. But, right. But so retail is something potentially on the future as you can ramp up to meet retail needs.
Sylvia Wulf: Correct. We think that retail is definitely an opportunity for us and as retailers really take the time to understand our story. Meaning, you know, consistent source of supply, lower carbon footprint.
producing more of a healthy protein with less, it lines up with their sustainability goals. And also [00:19:00] because our pricing strategy is to price consistent with commodities, it opens up opportunity to price. For consumers that can't necessarily afford wild salmon at 25, 26 bucks a pound. And we, we think that that is critically important as we think about the role that diet plays in the health of the American consumer.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, that's a really good point. And you mentioned this idea of affordability that most fish in the market is not affordable, especially in recent times. Is the Aqua Advantage salmon likely to achieve a lower price point someday at retailer? At retail to be more accessible and have that protein source be more accessible for the food Challenge.
Your food insecure. We
Sylvia Wulf: certainly believe so in that a lot of our effort in terms of operational performance is focused on bringing the cost of production down while maintaining the high quality. And [00:20:00] so we believe that yes we will be able to produce a more affordable salmon and that will create more distribution and access for consumers with differing demographics and economic levels.
Kevin Folta: And what about other fish species? It seems like, you know, salmon is one type of fish that we consume. And are there other types of fish that would bene that would benefit from this type of approach and farming in inland tanks? ,
Sylvia Wulf: we think that yes. The answer to that is yes. We're looking at shrimp specifically.
Shrimp is primarily produced in Southeast Asia and India and Ecuador, and it's the most consumed species. There are some challenges similar to what we saw with salmon in terms of survivability and environmental impact, and so we, that we think that. Is definitely an opportunity for this type of farming.
And then as you know, we have a gene edited tilapia, which creates more muscle mass [00:21:00] for the tilapia, which is a very economical form of protein. And so we're looking at whether or not tilapia could also be a species farmed with this method.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. Is that a is that a gene in is that a genetic engineering event, like the Belgian blue calf or the cow?
Sylvia Wulf: No, this is really a gene edited tilapia. So it just, it, we've, we've knocked out the myostatin gene so that it produces more body
Kevin Folta: mass. I'm sorry. That's a, that's what I was going for. So it, yeah, it knocks out myostatin, which is one of the, one of the proteins that turns over muscle mass. Right. So you gain muscle mass when there's a mutation in that gene.
So it's a gene. That's right. That's
Sylvia Wulf: right.
Kevin Folta: Ooh, super cool. Well, that's a really good innovation because that's also another way of food feed conversion and making more with less so good stuff. One important part of this is how the consumer feels about genetically engineered salmon and, and how has the consumer dialogue changed over the last 10 years?
Sylvia Wulf: You know, actually [00:22:00] we've done research and we started it in 2019 and did a quantitative and qualitative study to understand consumer perception of genetically engineered products and farm salmon. We repeated the, and we actually had a 70%. Purchase intent, which is double a successful new product. And so what, what consumers told us is, if you help me understand what you did, why you did it, and why it benefits me I will buy that salmon.
And then it really has to stand on taste and quality. We repeated that in just recently this year in 2022 and got. an even improved perception, and I think a lot of that has to do with several factors. The first was covid, you know? We all are worried about the collapse of our supply chains, the fact that we use biotechnology to develop a vaccine quickly.
And so consumers, particularly younger [00:23:00] consumers, are much more receptive to biotechnology than they might have been in the past. And then the, I would say the other influencing factor is what we hear about and deal with every day, and that is climate change. And so we know. That we have to think about food security and a sustainable impact or sustainability, particularly a responsible approach to the environment.
And so you, you know, what we don't want are two choices. Global starvation or planet destruction. And as consumers look at biotechnology as a way to. For both of those challenges globally, they are much more receptive to understanding what we did, why we did it, and why it benefits them. And so I think that we are perfectly poised for all of the challenges that we are dealing with globally today.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, that's great. And you know, the one [00:24:00] that I always think about too, and maybe this is a little bit down the road, is that we know that early access to protein in the developing years, in the early childhood has so much impact on cognitive capacity later on. And fish is a great source and unfortunately it really is out of the reach of many.
Economically and if inland farming and shorter supply chains and and, and less inputs, fewer inputs can help drive down the price a touch and make this more accessible. I think that's another huge residue of this that I think we
Sylvia Wulf: often overlook. I agree with you. I think that the more that we create access and affordability to a healthy protein like salmon, the better we will ha better health outcomes we'll have all over the world.
Kevin Folta: Well, if people wanted to learn more about AquaBounty and then maybe follow you on social media, where would they
Sylvia Wulf: look? Well, you can certainly go to aqua bonnie.com. We have. a, a website that shows what our farms look like. Talks about the [00:25:00] innovation and the genetic engineering of our fish. And also has footage of the construction of our facility in Ohio.
And so that would be one place. And then we're very active in social media like LinkedIn and Twitter, and certainly Facebook because as you know, The more that we can encourage consumption of salmon we believe that we'll get better health outcomes.
Kevin Folta: So Sylvia Wolf, thank you again for joining me on the podcast.
I really appreciate your time on this. It's in such an exciting innovation and really fun to see something in the pipeline for so long. I remember the first paper as a grad student in 1989 on the Salmon and, and to see it finally come to fruition. So congratulations and thank you for being a. Thank you Kevin, and thank you very much for joining us again on this week's Talking Biotech podcast.
Write a review on iTunes or go out and buy some salmon . It's, it's really exciting to see the continued innovations in biotech finally [00:26:00] coming to fruition, and so many of them having positive impacts on people and our planet. This is a Talking Biotech podcast, and we'll talk to you again next week.