Biotechnology breakthrough may end quest for blue roses

SAN FRANCISCO -- Roses are red, and a variety of other colors. But they've never been blue -- an omission legions of rose breeders have sought for centuries to remedy.

"It would be a beautiful thing to see," said James Armstrong, an award-winning flower show exhibitor and consultant with the San Francisco Rose Society.

Breakthroughs in biotechnology may finally resolve the quest for the elusive blue rose, which alas does not exist because roses lack the corresponding pigment genes.

Technology also promises to restore sweet smells to the rose and other flowers. Generations of commercial breeding has led to beautiful but bland-smelling roses. Their colors are stunning and they live long, but they've little fragrance.

Genetic engineers are also busy bringing science to bear on diseases and pests that affect the world's 120 different rose species, which have blossomed into a $10 billion-a-year business worldwide.

Still, it's the blue rose that remains the biggest prize.

Accidental discovery

At Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, scientists studying how drugs metabolize in the liver stumbled across a human protein that may hold the key to creating the world's first blue rose.

Elizabeth Gillam, working in the lab of biochemist F. Peter Guengerich, amazed her boss one day with a flask full of bacteria that she turned blue with an enzyme taken from a patient's liver. They're now trying to insert into roses the human gene that produces that blue enzyme.

"I would have called you crazy five years ago if you told me I would be pursuing a blue rose," said Guengerich, who spends most of his time researching disease-fighting drugs. "It's not something we set out to do."

Guengerich marvels that so many gardening enthusiasts lust after the blue rose, the pursuit of which has reached near-mythical proportions.

"For some reason this is the holy grail for this type of work," Guengerich said. "We could try to create blue cotton, blue anything really."

So far, though, they've only managed to get a few blue spots into the stems. "It's not as easy you may think," Guengerich said. "It's going to take more work."

Guengerich and Gillam are nonetheless talking to biotechnology companies about helping them develop a blue rose.

They're not alone -- Florigene, an Australian company, was launched in 1986 to develop a blue rose. Its scientists have tried to splice a "blue" petunia gene into roses, with little success so far.

Sweeter-smelling roses are perhaps closer to market. Researchers around the world are working to identify scent genes in roses and other flowers. A key step has been mapping their genomes.