Plants are leading the way for CRISPR technology to do genome editing as there a
ID: 207215 • Letter: P
Question
Plants are leading the way for CRISPR technology to do genome editing as there as less ethical issues than trying to engineer human’s, and plants are really important too for our food and health. What do you think about the new soybean plants that have been “gene edited” so they will contain less bad fats? Are you alarmed? Or is this cool to you? Would you prefer these gene edited soybeans made by a company near Minneapolis called Calyxt, or would you prefer to buy soybean oils made by old fashioned GMO technology by Monsanto? The last paragraph of the article says that gene editing technology is so simple, that “even undergraduates are now able to edit plants…and that “the genie is out of the bottle”. Would you like to edit plants?
Explanation / Answer
There is lots of ethical and environmental issues related to GMO crops. In GMO crops foreign genes are inserted in crops genome to get the desire traits. Insertiion of foreign genes might become harmful to animals consuming them.
In gene editing through crispr cas has nothing to do with the insertion of foreign DNA in the crop genome. It is simply editing the gene through deletion or additions of nucleotides to get the desire traits. So it is very much safer than GMO crops.
To edit plant genome with crispr technology need basic knowledge of molecular biology.SO, undergraduate working under supervision of senior scientist can easily edit genome.