![]() states, spurred by distrust of the big corporations that create GMOs and the ramifications of mixing genes from two species.īut newer gene-editing tools such as Crispr (and there are others) achieve the same effects without transferring new genes from one organism to another. These GMOs have allowed farmers to spray more herbicides without damaging their crops, or to create disease-resistant papayas in Hawaii, for example.Įven though science has not shown any human health effects of eating GMOs, they have been the target of consumer boycotts and tough government regulations throughout Europe and some U.S. On July 25, however, the European Union’s high court ruled for regulating gene-edited plants the same as GMOs.Īgricultural scientists have been improving plants through biotechnology for 25 years by transferring genes from one plant (or bacteria) species into another. federal regulators say that because these plants do not contain foreign DNA-that is, DNA from viruses or bacteria, both used to create the first genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs-they don’t need the strict regulation and years of testing required for GMOs. The first of these new gene-edited crops-canola-went on the market this year, with more coming in 2019. Today hundreds of research and development labs are at work testing the potential of Crispr-the technique’s acronym-to solve a range of food-related concerns for both consumers and growers: reduced-gluten wheat that could be tolerated by those with sensitivities, a mushroom that doesn’t brown when bruised or cut, soybeans lower in unhealthy fats, and even protecting the global chocolate supply-candymaker Mars is behind an effort to bolster cacao’s ability to fight off a virus that’s devastating the crop in West Africa. ![]() In agriculture, the technique can create plants that not only produce higher yields, like Lippman’s tomatoes, but also ones that are more nutritious and more impervious to drought and pests, traits that may help crops endure more extreme weather patterns predicted in the coming years. In medicine, gene editing could potentially cure inherited diseases, such as some forms of heart disease and cancer and a rare disorder that causes vision loss. His tomatoes are now programmed to produce double the number of branches and, as a result, twice the tomatoes. The cell’s genetic structure then repairs itself automatically, minus the targeted gene. He created the plants using gene editing, a technology-based on a natural process-that allows researchers to cut out certain bits of DNA in order to control traits. ![]() “There’s a long way to go, but what we have able to do in the last four or five years is unbelievable,” says Lippman, a professor of genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Out here, on the grounds of a former dairy farm, it has all the appearance of age-old tradition.īut inside a nearby lab, Lippman advanced the selective breeding process with a little nip and tuck of the plant’s own DNA, and now the “edited” plant is about to bear fruit in the field. Under a blistering July sun, Zachary Lippman bends over a row of foot-high plum tomato plants to reveal budding yellow flowers that will each produce a tomato and ripen over the summer. Tucked into a suburban Long Island neighborhood, a 12-acre plot may be growing the future.
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