RE: [DIYbio] Glowing plants for sale "Starlight Avatar"

[Sebastian Cocioba]

That's BioGlow's first sale. They are the patent owners that the kickstarter team is "borrowing" from. This is the company whose owner published evidence of the first autoluminescent plant back in 2010

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D

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From: SC
Sent: 1/15/2014 4:19 PM
To: diy...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [DIYbio] Glowing plants for sale "Starlight Avatar"

Hi everyone,

I see that someone is selling glowing tobacco plants, called "Starlight Avatar."  Does anyone know if this Is this any relation to the folks that had the Kickstarter project for glowing Arabidopsis?

 

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/01/heres-your-chance-to-own-a-glow-in-the-dark-plantand-soon/

 

 

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[Cathal Garvey]

Patents, eh? They make you complacent and slow, and you only think to
ship a real product when someone more driven than you bothers to.

And in this case, their "real product" is a tobacco plant, regulated for
ownership in many parts of the world and agriculturally relevant in
others, implying more stringent requirement for GMO regulatory
classification.

I'm *not* sold on the Glowing Plants project, I must say, but I'm even
less sold on "Bioglow"'s offering.

On 15/01/14 21:36, Sebastian Cocioba wrote:
> That's BioGlow's first sale. They are the patent owners that the
> kickstarter team is "borrowing" from. This is the company whose owner
> published evidence of the first autoluminescent plant back in 2010
>
> Sebastian S. Cocioba
> CEO & Founder
> New York Botanics, LLC
> Plant Biotech R&D

> ------------------------------
> From: SC <stac...@yahoo.com>

[Sebastian Cocioba]

I hear you on the whole patent issue and I see this as more of a
publicity stunt to get buzz around. Optimizing transgene expression in
anything else but tobacco and arabidopsis is going to take much longer
to tweak mainly due to regeneration time and the fact that he probably
optimized everything to work in N. tabacum. Coming from a few years of
experience with plant engineering I can say its not a simple task and
often involves scrapping weeks of work...like most projects in general.
If there is enough hype, his investors will be happy and continue
funding. This is just speculation but Im sure the final product will be
purely ornamental like poinsetta or some tree that has no agrivalue
beyond pretty and O2 factory. In retrospect choosing tobacco may have
been ill thought in terms of market breadth as you stated. I had no
clue there are regulations on tobacco. Here in the US you can do as you
wish...if its transgenic you'll have to wait in line at the EPA like
everyone else and field test for two years.

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC

Plant Biotech R&D From: Cathal Garvey
Sent: 1/15/2014 5:19 PM
To: diy...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [DIYbio] Glowing plants for sale "Starlight Avatar"

[Koeng]

It says in the terms and conditions that you can't multiply the plants in any way, and that the lifespan is 2-3 months

Who the heck would buy it if you can't even keep growing a few generations?

That's stupid. 

[Sebastian Cocioba]

I really doubt someone would come after you for planting the resulting seeds. The tobacco plant makes thousands of seeds that literally spill out. It would actually be hard to ensure it won't fall into the soil and sprout new shoots. I think he means for profit based multiplication as anything else would not harm their profits...unless of course they become so stringent that every individual plant is regulated and unauthorized propagation will be fully prosecuted. It seems like shooting yourself in the foot if you don't allow the customer to do as she wishes as long as its not generating profit, goodwill, publicity, of any kind.

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D

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From: Koeng
Sent: 1/15/2014 8:36 PM

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[Mike Horwath]

Female-sterile (no viable seeds) tobacco plants exist, maybe they are using those.  I don't think chloroplasts are normally transferred by pollen. This doesn't stop someone from propagating by cloning, however.

GloFish (with fluorescent genes) are also "no intential breeding allowed."  However, home aquarists can and do breed them.  I'm not aware of anyone getting prosecuted, and there's no way to track people doing it if they don't self-publicize.  To me this seems the most likely scenario for the BioGlow plants.

As to why have this policy...profit!  They are betting that lots of people will want these plants, not just serious DIYers and researchers.  They stand to make a lot more if every individual plant needs to be purchased from them.

Mike

[Koeng]

http://stores.ebay.com/Bioglow-Auction

God someone wants one of these things. 400$ FOR A PLANT! That is outrageous considering how cheaply you can make them!