How Long Until They Call it 'Zombie Plants?'

How Genetic Engineering Will Help Astronauts Going to Mars

Don’t panic, future astronauts, but GMOs will probably accompany you on your adventures to deep space.

Scientists hope to genetically engineer organisms to survive off-Earth and to do some of the dirty work on spaceships and other planets. The field of study is called “space synthetic biology.” And this new frontier in genetic research could be key to opening up the final frontier.

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Scientists are Working on Kill Switches for Genetically Modified Organisms

Gene editing has received a lot of press recently, thanks to a slew of recent advancements that allow scientists to do ever more with plant and animal genomes. Techniques, such as CRISPR-Cas9, are opening the doors to novel genetically modified crops (GMOs), stem cell research, synthetic biology and even experiments with human embryos.

However, with this explosion of research has come intense scrutiny. Modifying DNA, the blueprint of an organism, carries with it powerful implications and unknown risks. Just last week, an international summit on human gene editing was convened in Washington D.C. to discuss ethical guidelines for future gene editing research, among other agenda items. One of the biggest concerns about genetic modification is the potential for engineered microbes with altered DNA to escape the lab and wreak havoc on an unprepared world. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the fear is that these organisms may prove harmful to humans and difficult to stop. Fortunately, scientists have been working hard to ensure this nightmare scenario doesn’t occur.

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Genetically Engineered AquAdvantage Salmon Approved by FDA for Sale, Consumers

A fast-growing salmon has become the first genetically engineered animal to be approved for human consumption in the United States.

The decision, issued by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 19, releases the salmon from two decades of regulatory limbo. The move was met with swift opposition from some environmental and food-safety groups.

But for advocates of the technology, the decision comes as a relief after a long and vexing wait. They say that it could spur the development of other genetically engineered animals. “It opens up the possibility of harnessing this technology,” says Alison Van Eenennaam, an animal geneticist at the University of California, Davis. “The regulatory roadblock had really been disincentivizing the world from using it.”

The genetically modified fish, called ‘AquAdvantage' salmon, were engineered by AquaBounty Technologies of Maynard, Massachusetts, to express higher levels of a growth hormone than wild salmon. The fish grow to full size in 18 months rather than 3 years.

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China is Using CRISPR to Rapidly Developing Genetically Customized Animals

China’s western Shaanxi Province is known for rugged windswept terrain and its coal and wool, but not necessarily its science. Yet at the Shaanxi Provincial Engineering and Technology Research Center for Shaanbei Cashmere Goats, scientists have just created a new kind of goat, with bigger muscles and longer hair than normal. The goats were made not by breeding but by directly manipulating animal DNA—a sign of how rapidly China has embraced a global gene-changing revolution.

Geneticist Lei Qu wants to increase goatherd incomes by boosting how much meat and wool each animal produces. For years research projects at his lab in Yulin, a former garrison town along the Great Wall, stumbled along, Qu’s colleagues say. “The results were not so obvious, although we had worked so many years,” his research assistant, Haijing Zhu, wrote in an e-mail.

That changed when the researched adopted the new gene-customizing technology called CRISPR–Cas9, a technique developed in the U.S. about three years ago. CRISPR uses enzymes to precisely locate and snip out segments of DNA, much like a word-processor finding and deleting a given phrase—a process known as “gene-editing.” Although it is not the first tool scientists have used to tweak DNA, it is by far more precise and cheaper than past technologies. The apparent ease of this powerful method now raises both tantalizing possibilities and pressing ethical questions.

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CRISPR Technology may Allow Some Engineered Crops to Bypass Safety Regulations

A twist on a revolutionary gene-editing technique may make it possible to modify plant genomes while sidestepping national biosafety regulations, South Korean researchers say.

Plant scientists have been quick to experiment with the popular CRISPR/Cas9 technique, which uses an enzyme called Cas9, guided by two RNA strands, to precisely cut segments of DNA in a genome. By disabling specific genes in wheat and rice, for example, researchers hope to make disease-resistant strains of the crops.

But the process can introduce bits of foreign DNA into plant genomes. And some jurisdictions, such as the European Union, could decide to classify such plants as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) — making their acceptance by regulatory bodies contentious, says geneticist Jin-Soo Kim of Seoul National University.

Kim and his team tweaked the technique so that it can delete specific plant genes without introducing foreign DNA, creating plants that he and his colleagues think “might be exempt from current GMO regulations”.

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The Case for Genetically Engineering Food

Scientists Develop Two Different Forms of Kill Switch (Ketracel White!) for Genetically Modified Microbes

As genetically-modified microbes take on ever more tasks – from creating new pharmaceuticals to turning out clean fuel sources – researchers have searched for a way to biologically isolate them from their wild counterparts, so that if they were ever accidentally released, they wouldn’t be able to survive.

Now, scientists releasing two separate papers in the journal Nature think they have a solution. They unveiled two different approaches to modifying a strain of E. coli to make it dependent on artificial nutrients. In a controlled environment, such as a research lab or factory, scientists would provide that sustenance. But if the bacteria break free, they wouldn’t be able to make the compounds themselves, and would die.

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European Union Allows Individual Members to Ban or Approve of GMO Crops

A compromise deal to give European Union states the option of banning genetically modified crops won approval from EU environment ministers on Thursday, bringing the EU closer to ending years of deadlock over GM cultivation.

Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops in Europe have divided opinion, with strong opposition in many countries, including France and Germany, while Britain favors them.

Thursday's compromise deal drew criticism from both opponents and supporters of growing GM food in Europe.

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A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

Go.  Read.  NOW!

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