Biofortification of plants: New Reviews ($)

Biofortification is the nutritional enhancement (using conventional or genetic engineering approaches) of food with vitamins or micronutrients with the goal of improving the human diet. A set of new reviews in Current Opinion in Biotechnology summarizes progress towards biofortification of plants to increase their thiamin (vitamin B1), iron and iodine levels. Each article discusses the challenges and solutions towards increasing the uptake (for iron and iodine) or synthesis (for thiamin) of the nutrient at the molecular level, as well as its bioavailability. Another articles in this series explores the ethics of using GM methods to improve diets, addressing Golden Rice as well as “second generation” GM crops. Curr. Opin. Biotech.