Gene editing advancements critical to feeding planet

And now for some good news: because of the scientific research at Colorado State University and other research institutions we may be able to feed all nine billion people in 2050 and confront the agricultural challenges of a warming planet.

CSU scientists are using the newest CRISPRCas9 gene editing technology to identify disease resistance and other important attributes in wheat and rice, two of the most important cereal grains.

Their work could mean the difference between eating and starvation for millions in the future.

To understand why this work is so important, let’s back up a step or two.

Humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals for 10,000 years, longer in the case of dogs.

Through selective breeding, we’ve transformed wild species that were small, sometimes inedible, or liked to bite into the useful crops and livestock we have today.

That juicy ear of sweet corn on your plate looks nothing like the tiny, hard kernel cob of the wild grass from which it descended.

The almonds in that heavenly marzipan once contained lethal cyanide.

The dachshund at your feet is a genetically modified wolf.

In the 1930s, scientists discovered that they could hasten the process of genetic modification in the lab with the help of radiation.

By bombarding seeds with Xrays, scientists could induce the kind of genetic mutations that happen randomly in nature.

The delicious dark pink grapefruit you had for breakfast came from a tree with a pink fruit gene that was accentuated in the lab through radiation.

The peppermint oil in your gum comes from plants modified in the same way.

Although faster than relying on selective breeding, genetic manipulation through radiation is still a slow and haphazard process.

The next advancement in genetic modification came in the 1980s; scientists created the revolutionary technology of recombinant DNA which bridges the species barrier.

Diabetics can get human insulin thanks to the work of these scientists instead of depending on insulin taken from the pancreases of pigs and cows.

This marvel of science was achieved because all plants and animals share the same building blocks of life — DNA.

DNA functions as a kind of recipe book.

If you have red hair, for example, it is because your DNA has a red hair recipe that your scalp cooks up.

From wolves to corn to bacteria, the recipe book of all living things is made of the same stuff — thymine (T), cytosine (C), adenine (A), or guanine (G).

It’s helpful to think of these nucleotides as the letters that spell out the recipe book.

Three decades ago, scientists figured out they could take the recipe for human insulin and put it into a bacteria and that bacteria would follow the recipe to make human insulin.

Since that time, scientists have been working to decode and interpret the DNA recipe book, or genome, of important plants and animals.

They have decoded the genomes for wheat and rice. Now scientists at CSU and other institutions can look at varieties of these essential staples and pinpoint the recipes for resistance to drought, heat, pests, and diseases.

They achieve this wonder with the help of an enzyme derived from bacteria — CRISPRCas9 (pronounced “crisper”) which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.

The enzyme allows scientists to edit the genome by taking out certain recipes or altering others and then determining whether the change improved the plant’s attributes.

These researchers are not introducing DNA from other species but working to improve existing crop genomes.

What makes this work so important is that we don’t have time to rely on conventional breeding or radiation experiments.

A single degree rise in night temperatures in Asia has already reduced the rice yield.

Dr. Jan Leach, Associate Dean for Research at the College of Agricultural Sciences at CSU told me that the production of rice must increase by 50 percent in order to keep up with rising populations; “If we don’t move faster we may not be able to keep up with the demand.”

The clock is ticking but thanks to these scientists we have reason to be hopeful. Go Rams!