Scientists welcome geneediting decision

A United States geneediting ruling has delighted plant scientists, reports Robin McKie ,of The Observer.

RESEARCHERS in the United States have been given the goahead to use geneediting techniques to alter crops and plants.

The decision opens the door for scientists to create a new generation of genetically altered crops without serious restriction and paves the way for approvals for similar work in Britain and the rest of Europe.

The decision — by the US Department of Agriculture — has delighted scientists who had feared that limitations on the creation and growing of genetically modified crops would also be imposed on crops created using far simpler geneediting techniques.

‘‘I think this decision by American legislators will have all sorts of benefits in the long run,’’ Prof Denis Murphy, of the University of South Wales, said.

‘‘This is a winwin situation because agriculture for gene editing is cheaper, faster, simpler and more precise than the genetic modification of plants, in which a gene is taken from one organism and moved to another.’’

The European Court of Justice indicated in January it did not think crops created through geneediting techniques should be regulated by the rules that governed genetically modified organisms in Europe.

‘‘At the same time, Britain’s Acre — the Advisory Committee on Releases into

the Environment — also seems to be sympathetic to this position,’’ Prof Huw Dylan Jones, of Aberystwyth University, said.

‘‘It is very encouraging.’’ In the wake of hostile green campaigns, Britain imposed severe restrictions on GM crops two decades ago and few have been grown. The prospect this fate would also befall plants created by the newer and simpler technique of gene editing worried many researchers who feared a technology at which Britain excels would be banned.

These fears are now disappearing, they say.

‘‘If we have our own domestic geneediting industry then scientists trained at our universities will have something to work on here when they qualify,’’ Murphy said.

‘‘At present, our young scientists have to go to work in another country if they want to continue working on the topic.’’

Gene editing could lead to the development of domestic crops particularly suited to Britain, Dylan Jones said.

‘‘Loliums and clovers that are good for grazing could be improved to make them more hardy, for example,’’ he said.

‘‘It is very hopeful.’’ — Guardian News and Media