The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed on March 28 2018, that some plants whose genes have been edited can be designed, cultivated, and sold in the market. The crops will not be subject to any kind of regulation.
The USDA is of the opinion that as long as any type of genetic alteration can be bred in a plant, it need not require any regulation. The recent order may just have opened up the floodgates for genome editing in India as well.
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With genome editing underway in several parts of America, scientists are using CRISPR-Cas9 to make crops resilient to any climate, to treat genetic diseases, and to develop designer foods and drugs.
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CRISPR-Cas9 is fast, cheap, and simple.
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In January 2018, a team of Indian scientists used CRISPR-Cas9 technology in the Rasthali variety of bananas.
Siddharth Tiwari, who led the research team, told India Science Wire: “We would like to exploit the genome editing tool for development of nutritionally improved transgene-free Indian banana variety. The selected events of the biofortified banana crop would be analyzed for nutritional, bioavailability and agronomical performance with the appropriate collaborative efforts.”
According to Tiwari, using the CRISPR-Cas9 techonolgy could develop a non-transgenic variety of banana. This new variety could be more beneficial in considering biosafety challenges for commercial cultivation of the improved crop.
Read full, original post: Genetically modified CRISPR’d food is now a reality; what does this mean for India?
