A cross-sectional study of biotechnology awareness and teaching in European high schools.

Undoubtedly, biotechnology has a tremendous impact on our daily lives. As a result of this and in parallel to the advancement of knowledge in this field of applied research, consumer awareness of the potential benefits and risks of this technology has steadily increased, leading to a thorough investigation of the public perception of biotechnology in the past years. Indeed, it has become clear that it is in the general interest of science and especially of applied research to inform the public of its advances. A promising next step is to strengthen biotechnology communication in scholastic institutions. In this paper, we investigate the perception of biotechnology in a specific target group, namely high-school students in the 16-20-year-old age range. We conducted a questionnaire-based survey on a total of 1410 students in six European countries to investigate students' perception, concern, scientific knowledge, and awareness. Our data revealed some unexpected patterns of acceptance and concern about biotechnology. Knowledge analysis indicated that pupils lack specific knowledge about biotechnological applications and their interest in biotechnology appeared to be linked to knowledge. Analysis of specific questions about teaching practices at schools suggests that a better targeted choice in media as vehicles for information together with selected speakers could be instrumental in increasing students' interest in science and more specifically in biotechnology.

Engineering resistance to geminiviruses--review and perspectives.

Following the conceptual development of virus resistance strategies ranging from coat protein-mediated interference of virus propagation to RNA-mediated virus gene silencing, much progress has been achieved to protect plants against RNA and DNA virus infections. Geminiviruses are a major threat to world agriculture, and breeding resistant crops against these DNA viruses is one of the major challenges faced by plant virologists and biotechnologists. In this article, we review the most recent transgene-based approaches that have been developed to achieve durable geminivirus resistance. Although most of the strategies have been tested in model plant systems, they are ready to be adopted for the protection of crop plants. Furthermore, a better understanding of geminivirus gene and protein functions, as well as the native immune system which protects plants against viruses, will allow us to develop novel tools to expand our current capacity to stabilize crop production in geminivirus epidemic zones.