Agriculture Business Week

Alltech’s new technology uses DNA and nutrigenomics to pinpoint an animal’s needs.

At first glance, the new gene chip developed by Alltech, looks like your ordinary memory card. But more than storing thousand bits of information, this small chip uses DNA and nutrigenomics to pinpoint an animal’s needs. As what was explained to us, it would take only one drop of a cow’s blood or saliva to reveal a lot of information on a cow’s potential to produce milk or meat.

In the recently concluded 22nd AsiaPacific Lecture Tour, Alltech’s founder and President Dr. Pearse Lyons sat down with members of the press and excitedly told about what this new technology can do. Dr. Lyons received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University College Dublin, Ireland. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham in the UK, he worked in the alcohol industry in Ireland, the UK and the USA . He founded Alltech in 1980, and today the company is a leading animal health company with group sales approaching $500 million.

And to be able to understand the gene chip technology from the local perspective, we also talked to Dr. Noel Cuyno, Alltech Philippines’ General Manager. A UPLB graduate of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Cuyno has been working with the company for the past 11 years.

Excerpts: (Dr. Pearse Lyons)

Can you tell us about Alltech’s latest innovations?
One of the technologies that we’re investing in is the gene chip. And that has led us into our chosen area into a number of things. That is to gain improvement in animal health, animal productivity and food safety.

Is the gene chip available in the market already?
Absolutely.  Today, you can get your own gene chip. They will take and type your genome and for about US$200,000, you can get your own would your gene chip. So what chip do for you? In humans, your own gene chip will give you information that perhaps you don’t want because it might say you are predisposed to Alzheimer’s, cancer or diabetes.

How do you exactly use the gene chip?
We look and see the cost elements in the diet. Animal diet for corn, for the most part, you import corn and soya and you have fat. But the fourth element is vitamin E and it’s very expensive. But with the gene chip, we’ve been able to show that you can get the same results at 1/5 the level of vitamin E if you do certain things. And that’s the power of the gene chip.

And yes, it’s now available in the Philippines. I just like to emphasize that here; we’re not talking about genetic engineering. All we’re saying is that we understand the genome, and because we have a measurement here, we can say when you take vitamin E or you take aspirin, it affects you in one way and it affects you in another way. Why? So our understanding on the impact of nutrition on the gene and hence the term nutrigenomics. That one test of the gene chip can give you 40,000 bits of information relating to nutrition or related diseases. It’s an amazing technology.

Approximately how many people are using the gene chip technology now? In terms of people using it, nobody is using it from the practical point of view. There “maybe five or six companies around the world from the research point of view. We have the only animal nutrigenomics center and it’s purely devoted to animals.

Excerpts: (Dr. Noel Cuyno)
In simple terms, how does the gene chip really work?
It is a device that measures the expression of genes (switching on, switching off) in relation to nutrition. By feeding certain minerals and vitamins, we can identify which genes are switched on and switched off. It shows the interplay between genetics and nutrition.

How accurate are the information in the gene chip?
It is still in its infancy stage. A lot of work already has been done in the human side. Alltech is the first who used this application in the animal side, a number of our products right now are being developed using the understanding that we get from nutrigenomics. We launched the Nutrigenomics center just last year.

Using Gene Chip technology, we can measure close to 3,000 different parameters. It is a reliable tool when observing the mode of action of certain additives, vitamins and minerals in gene expression.

How long did it take to develop this technology?
It is still in its infancy stage. A lot of work already has been done in the human side. Alltech is the first who used this application in the animal side, a number of our products right now are being developed using the understanding that we get from nutrigenomics. We launched the Nutrigenomics center just last year.

Dr. Lyons mentioned that the gene chip costs $US200,000 each? What accounts for such exorbitant price?
Since the gene chip technology is a just recent technology, and at the moment only a few players are just applying it, that explains why the costs is too expensive. But time will come when this will be adopted by other players, definitely the cost to produce this gene chip will already be affordable. But come to think of it, if you factor in the cost of doing trials the amount of animals involved in doing so and the amount of time plus wealth of data that can be generated and the speed at which the data can be obtained, it turned out to be cheaper.

Is this available locally?
It is not yet available in our industry. But, I can’t comment if it is being used in the human side.

How do you think the gene chip can help our local animal and food industries?
It will be a valuable tool so as to evaluate the impact of nutrition on genetics. It can guide us on what nutritional strategies can be employed to enhance the genetic potentials of animals in obtaining desired efficiency. Using this kind of technology will give confidence to people that with this can give us a better understanding on how to respond to the animals need for nutrition.

By Ronald G. Mangubat