Consumer Perception a Barrier for Genetically Engineered Microbes

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

We’ve shared this week about the work Resilient Biotics is doing to use microbes instead of antibiotics to treat bovine respiratory disease. Companies like Resilient use naturally-occurring microbes, but the future might be in genetically engineering those microbes for maximum efficacy. Here’s Resilient CEO Chris Belnap.

Belnap… “I think what is the bigger question is where that product fits in for consumers and producers. And if there's potential risks in how the meat is perceived in the supermarket. And that's probably the bigger question is similar to genetically modified organisms that are the animals that we eat. So genetically modified fish, genetically modified pigs, you know, something like that. Which, you know, the technology exists, but, you know, we've sort of collectively decided as a society that, you know, maybe we're not ready for that exactly right now. Although I think the industry and society is warming up to it.”

Belnap sites drug pathways that have been engineered with strains in human health as an example of where things are going.

Belnap… “And doing something like that, I think it's certainly the future of the microbiome field. It's more about perception and also establishing the regulatory framework for those sorts of things.”

For now though the focus is on mining the microbiome for naturally-occurring microbes.