GMOs: genetically-edited crops

Gene editing agriculture:

• USDA regulations on GMOs apply only to those constructed using plant pathogens like bacteria, or their DNA; gene-edited plants are not regulated
• Calyxt: startup that edits the genes of thousands of plants
  • scientists create designer plants that don’t have foreign DNA; adds or deletes snippets of genes—”accelerated breeding”
  • uses TALEN, co-developed by Calyxt founder, which was developed two years earlier than CRISPR, and as such has advanced further toward commercial crops
  • has designed 19 plants
    • edited soybeans to use in healthier oils (without trans fat)
      • will face competition with similar beans, ie a Monsanto GMO
    • including a wheat plant that grinds into a white flour with 3x more fiber
  • fast-to-market business model
• obstacles:
  • easier to design and make DNA strands than to get them inside plants
  • uncertainty over which genes should be edited
    • Scientists know how oils are synthesized and why fruit turns brown, but genetic causes for other plant traits that are both well understood and easy to alter are unknown

GMOs

• 90% of the soybean crop in the US are GMOs, genetically enhanced to be immune to Roundup
• stigma: 40% of US adults think GMOs are less healthy
  • warring messages from scientists, agriculture lobbies, and NGOs like Greenpeace
• legal in the US, Brazil, Argentina, and India, but banned throughout much of the rest of the world
• unclear whether gene-edited crops are considered GMOs
  • no way to tell a gene-edited plant from a natural one
  • Lack of scrutiny of whether the plants could harm insects, spread their genetic enhancements to wild populations, or create superweeds
  • New Zealand and USDA’s organic council decided they are GMOs; the Netherlands and Sweden decided they weren’t; China and EU have yet to decide

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609230/these-are-not-your-fathers-gmos/