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biological containment

Restricting the movement of (genetically engineered) organisms by arranging barriers to prevent them from growing outside the laboratory. Biological containment can take two forms: making the organism unable to survive in the outside environment, or making the outside environment inhospitable to the organism. The latter is rarely suitable for bacteria, which, in principle, could survive almost anywhere. Thus for bacteria and yeasts, the favoured approach is to mutate the genes in the organism so that they require a supply of a specific nutrient that is usually available only in the laboratory. If they get out, they then cannot grow. Making the environment unfriendly to the organism is partly a biological control, partly a physical one. Thus, some of the first genetically engineered rice strains were developed in England (which is too cold for rice to grow) and tried in the field in Arizona (where it is too dry). Biological containment may also involve the use of vector molecules and host organisms which have been genetically disabled such that they can survive only in the peculiar conditions provided by the experimenter and which are unavailable outside the laboratory.

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