Gosh – what a news! Suntony’s finally done it – they’ve commercialised Blue Rose!!!

blue rose from Suntory

It may be old news if I’d been keeping up to date with latest Biotech discoveries, but no, I’m not doing that anymore…

Yes Suntory makes things other than Japanese ‘Scotch’ Whiskey and Midori. They’ve been onto this for ages, well, at least ever since I’ve studied Biotechnology at undergraduate… (so, that’s circa 1995… geez…)

Yes, I know Mike’s mum will be interested to get one to graft it – it cost 2000~3000 yen a stem (say AUD30, yes AUD is strong at the moment, but still pricy!) & will be on sale from 3 November. It’s actually produced with an Australian Biotechnology company called Florigene (used to be Calgene Pacific, at least when I studied this stuff from memory). I do remember being taught they’ve isolated the blue gene from petunia, but their biggest aim was to create blue rose, as roses naturally don’t contain any blue pigment gene. Now that gene has been successfully incorporated and expressed in roses (not particularly sure what parent rose – looks like iceburg??? but me no rose expert), they can start crossing with others to create wider variety of colours. Call it scientific genius or frankenstein science, I really take my hat off to the dedication of scientists who worked on it for such a long time to make a dream a reality! (oh, for people scared of GM foods – I’m sure these roses are safe to eat (should you wish to do so), I’d be more concerned about pesticides on it though ).

For more Scienfic Info, there’s an article in Plant Cell Physiol. 2007. Nov 48(11):1589-600

Tags: Biotechnology, flowers, Japan

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