Recent advances that allow the precise editing of genomes have raised the possibility that fruit and other crops might be genetically improved without the need to introduce foreign genes, according to researchers.
Led by Chidananda Nagamangala Kanchiswamy of Istituto Agrario San Michele in Italy the new review focuses on how recently developed genome-editing tools for fruit crop improvement could be used to produce fruits with new or improved traits but with higher consumer acceptance than ‘traditional’ GM technologies.
“Societal distrust for such technologies, coupled with misleading and false information regarding their safety, means that traditional GM technology has been difficult, or impossible to commercialize successfully,” wrote the team.
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However, with awareness of what makes these biotechnologies new and different, genetically edited fruits might be met with greater acceptance by society at large than genetically modified organisms so far have been, especially in Europe, they said.
Read the full, original article: Forget genetically modified, here’s to genetically edited
