For almost two decades, [Sara] Fitzsimmons has been working to revive the American chestnut (Castanea dentata), a foundational species that once dominated the Eastern forests of the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. But more than a century ago, the trees were exposed to chestnut blight, an invasive pathogen that was accidentally introduced by imported Asian species of the trees.
In [William] Powell’s lab at SUNY-ESF, he recently used genetic engineering to develop a blight-resistant tree by combining a single strand of wheat DNA with the DNA of American chestnut. Powell, who has worked on the project for more than 30 years, isolated a gene from wheat, targeting it for its ability to deal with the blight fungus. “The nice thing about this gene is it counteracts how the fungus attacks the tree,” he says.
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“So basically we are taking the weapon away from the fungus.” The genetically engineered, or transgenic, trees are known as Darling 58 and are the first of their kind. And while the new trees can still become infected with the same chestnut blight that killed their cousins more than a century ago—and potentially even be slightly damaged by it—the tree will survive.
