Plant biotechnologist's designer trees

By REBECCA WALSH

Dr Julia Charity has been rearing these fledgling pines for a year in a Rotorua glasshouse.

Down the hall, hundreds of tiny pine trees grow in agar jelly under fluorescent lights. Outside, in Whakarewarewa forest, a redwood plantation lines the back of the Forest Research complex.

Surrounded by paperwork, the plant biotechnologist has just returned from Wellington, where she was named the Zonta Science Award winner for her work in genetic engineering.

For five years, Dr Charity, 31, and her Rotorua team have been developing a way to apply the methods used in crop research to forestry.

They have altered a cancer-causing soil bacterium called Agrobacterium to carry favourable DNA. It is the first time the technology has been used on trees in New Zealand.

Their work will now enable scientists to develop "designer trees" with new traits quicker than nature would allow.

"What we have done in the laboratory is taken out the nasty cancer-forming gene and replaced them with our favourite piece of DNA," says Dr Charity.

"We get the bacteria to take up the DNA by giving it an electric shock. The cell walls open in absolute horror and the DNA shoots in there ... the bacteria acts like a shuttle and basically injects its DNA into the plant cell."

The work was promising for the development of insect-resistant trees and could also be used to improve wood quality.

In years to come it might also be possible to produce trees for pharmaceutical or medicinal purposes, she said.

But all the research and the latest breakthrough might never have happened if it wasn't for Dr Charity's sixth-form biology teacher at Villa Maria College, in Christchurch.

Despite a love for the subject, she planned to leave school, complete a science certificate and get married.

"He said, 'No, don't do that, go to university. You will love it and do really well.'

"I didn't want to spend three years at university. But he said, 'Look past that, you will have the rest of your life to work.'

"He doesn't know what a profound influence he has had on my life."

Now, not only does she work with trees, Dr Charity runs, walks and mountain-bikes through the native forest near her home two or three times a week.

"I am completely enlivened by the forest. It's magic. I love it."

After 7 1/2 years at university and five at Forest Research, Dr Charity plans to continue with "more of the same" and is keen to see the research put into practice for the financial good of the country.

Acutely aware of public concerns about genetic engineering, she will be using her prize to work with the Canada Forestry Service in Quebec for three months to investigate the effects of the new technology and the risks it brings.

"I think people in the community want an assurance that scientists are taking responsibility and that we are asking the right types of questions.

"Although it is tempting to keep forging ahead and to make new discoveries, I think we can learn a lot by investigating and understanding the technology better."

* The Zonta Science Award is presented every two years to acknowledge the work of women scientists.