According to the World Food Program, some 795 million people – one in nine people on earth – don’t have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That will only get worse with the next global food crisis, predicted to occur within four years by experts at the recent Third International Conference on Global Warming and Food Security.
To counteract the coming problem, it is imperative to try novel and daring solutions across the agricultural food chain, including the gene modification of crops. While genetically modified (GM) crops could be our best hope for feeding an increasingly hungry planet, they need to be developed within a regulatory framework that takes potential risks into account and protects farmers, consumers and the environment.
Conventionally, the production of genetically modified organisms involves inserting desired foreign genes into the genome of a plant or animal. But a different technique known as gene editing modifies plant, as well as animal and human, genomes without the introduction of foreign genetic materials.
Gene editing uses biological catalysts called transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) that can be engineered to bind to any DNA sequence. Scientists can introduce these enzymes into living cells where they cut out unwanted pieces of DNA, in effect editing the genome.
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Interestingly, the move toward genome editing as the favored approach to genetic engineering may, at least in part, provide some leeway for biotech companies to avoid regulation. Genome editing using TALENs and similar techniques are either outside the jurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture or were not envisioned when existing regulations were created.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Can gene editing provide a solution to global hunger?
