CRISPR awaiting approval in Europe
Genetic engineering against the food crisis
Alex Kudrin, Hi-News (based on the materials of CtrlhelpTech: Genetic engineering against food crisis – VM).
According to World Bank forecasts, 9 billion people will live on Earth by 2050. To feed such a population, it will be necessary to produce 50% more food than at present. At the same time, global warming threatens to reduce harvests by a quarter over the same period.
Currently, there are about 7.3 billion people living on Earth, so the need to increase food production here is overestimated by about two times. Yes, and meteorology said about global warming in two – VM.
What can save the planet from starvation? Considering the upcoming problems, agricultural crops that tolerate a hot and arid climate would be very useful to us. Plants resistant to fungi and infections, as well as agricultural crops with high energy value would not be superfluous. It will be great if the fruits of these plants can lie in warehouses for months without loss of properties and rotting.
Such cultures may soon be presented to humanity by CRISPR-Cas9 technology or simply CRISPR (from the English Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – short palindromic repeats, regularly arranged in groups).
This technology promises to revolutionize, providing fast, simple and accurate achievement of the goals of genetic engineering.
In recent years, CRISPR has been increasingly used to improve agricultural products. For example, Chinese scientists have managed to create wheat varieties resistant to powdery mildew. Japanese researchers have increased the shelf life of tomatoes by turning on and off the genes responsible for their maturation. British experts were able to increase the germination of barley seeds. Other studies have significantly improved the properties of potatoes, soybeans and rice.
How does it work? Scientists compare the use of CRISPR with the "find and replace" function in a text editor. The technology involves searching for the right gene and subsequent editing, which may consist in removing the gene, "repairing" it or, in some cases, supplementing it.
"CRISPR is one of the most powerful tools in the hands of biologists. This is the most careful form of plant breeding that humans have ever created," writes Stephen S. Hall in the journal Scientific American.
The rapid introduction of the technology is due to the fact that the US regulatory authorities have not included the varieties obtained with its help in the category of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The US Department of Agriculture made this decision because CRISPR does not involve the introduction of genes borrowed from other organisms into the plant.
European regulatory structures intend to make a decision on this issue within a year.
"Regulatory authorities have equated CRISPR products to agricultural crops, the improvement of which is achieved by traditional methods, for example, using chemical mutagens or gamma rays. This solution is very beneficial for business. If the products were classified as GMOs, it would take five and a half years and $35 million for all sorts of approvals. This means that not only large enterprises, but also small companies will be able to use CRISPR," biologist Daniel Voytas told Scientific American magazine.
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28.04.2016