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Chain reaction' spreads gene through insects, defying the classic laws of Mendelian genetics
- Thread starter Emily
- Start date
Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
CRISPR IS COMING TO AGRICULTURE — WITH BIG IMPLICATIONS FOR FOOD, FARMERS, CONSUMERS AND NATURE
January 28, 2016 — Very few technologies truly merit the epithet “game changer” — but a new genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 is one of them. Since we first developed the ability to alter the genetic material inside a plant or animal in the 1970s, efforts to do so have required weeks, months or even years of molecular tinkering. With CRISPR (the technology’s shorthand name), precision and speed have soared.
“In the past, it was a student’s entire Ph.D. thesis to change one gene,” Bruce Conklin, a geneticist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, recently told The New York Times. “CRISPR just knocked that out of the park.”
The tool is also extremely versatile and seems to work in nearly every creature and cell type in which it has been tried. In the words of Jill Wildonger of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, “It really opens up the genome of virtually every organism that’s been sequenced to be edited and engineered.”
And that, when it comes to agriculture and the environment, is both its promise and its peril. CRISPR opens the door to all kinds of potential food production improvements. But improvements for whom? Farmers? Consumers? Agribusiness? Sustainable farming systems? Industrial agriculture? And who will decide?
If we want to make sure this powerful technology promotes just and sustainable food, we’ll need to accompany its development with a policy framework that reflects the nuances of its biology and its diverse applications — and that responds to the concerns of people who are affected when technologies migrate from lab to land.
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE
Gene editing offers dramatic advances in speed, scope and scale of genetic improvement. It also offers an opportunity for more nuanced GMO governance.
January 28, 2016 — Very few technologies truly merit the epithet “game changer” — but a new genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 is one of them. Since we first developed the ability to alter the genetic material inside a plant or animal in the 1970s, efforts to do so have required weeks, months or even years of molecular tinkering. With CRISPR (the technology’s shorthand name), precision and speed have soared.
“In the past, it was a student’s entire Ph.D. thesis to change one gene,” Bruce Conklin, a geneticist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, recently told The New York Times. “CRISPR just knocked that out of the park.”
The tool is also extremely versatile and seems to work in nearly every creature and cell type in which it has been tried. In the words of Jill Wildonger of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, “It really opens up the genome of virtually every organism that’s been sequenced to be edited and engineered.”
And that, when it comes to agriculture and the environment, is both its promise and its peril. CRISPR opens the door to all kinds of potential food production improvements. But improvements for whom? Farmers? Consumers? Agribusiness? Sustainable farming systems? Industrial agriculture? And who will decide?
If we want to make sure this powerful technology promotes just and sustainable food, we’ll need to accompany its development with a policy framework that reflects the nuances of its biology and its diverse applications — and that responds to the concerns of people who are affected when technologies migrate from lab to land.
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE