Is Italy’s agriculture ready for CRISPR?

Posted on by
1

viteGenome editing seems tailored for Italian agriculture as DNA can be modified without introducing foreign sequences and without destroying the legal identity of traditional cultivars. CRISPR could help developing plants more resistant to diseases, for example, avoiding at the same time bureaucracy and public perception problems that have slowed the adoption of GMOs. The stakes are high but some hurdles stand in the way. We have interviewed  Michele Morgante, geneticist from the University of Udine and President of the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics.    Continue reading →

Is CRISPR feminine in Latin languages?

Posted on by
1

crispr acronimo

CRISPR is on the lips of every science enthusiast nowadays, but are we correctly using this acronym? How do Latin languages assimilate hitech neologisms from English? Italian, like French and Spanish, virtually lacks the neutral gender. As a result new words referring to inanimate objects is problematic for non-anglosaxon speakers when forming an agreement with articles, pronouns or adjectives. The author of this blog is Italian and uses CRISPR as a feminine noun, am I right? If so, why is “laser” masculine in Latin languages? If the two technologies could switch their gender, would it affect how they are perceived? I asked for an opinion the Accademia della Crusca, which is the leading institute in the field of research on the Italian language. They asked Anna Thornton, from L’Aquila University, to answer these questions. First of all she stresses that there are no infallible rules in grammatical gender assignment, only trends.  Continue reading →

The CRISPR diagnostics era is here

Posted on by
1

ZikaTest_Paper-based-results-002-1024x576Elementary dear Watson, we should have expected that. The CRISPR wave is hitting diagnostics, with a new high sensitivity detection platform named after Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular detective. The acronym SHERLOCK stands for “Specific High Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing”. While the technique is used in thousands of labs to turn genes on and off, CRISPR embarks also on epidemiology and learns how to identify nucleic acids from viral and bacterial pathogens to diagnose infections. The paper published in Science by James Collins, Feng Zhang and colleagues heralds a new generation of low cost diagnostic tests with single-base specificity, easy to use even when oubreaks occur in remote areas. Continue reading →

Can you make a CRISPR Golden Rice?

Posted on by
Reply

golden-rice-about2

Golden Rice may be the best agricultural product from the biotech era before CRISPR. Unfortunately it’s caught in the GMOs redtape, and authorizations for commercial growing are still missing 17 years after its invention. This rice engineered to biosynthesize β-carotene could save lives and improve the health of people struggling with vitamin A deficiency in several regions of the world. If policymakers and consumers will give a warmer response to genome editing, in comparison with classic genetic engineering, could CRISPR solve the impasse by allowing the development of a new non-GM Golden Rice? We asked its inventors, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer.

Continue reading →

Oldie but goodie. Sanjaya Rajaram speaks out

Posted on by
2

Sanjaya_Rajaram_WFPHe does not write pamphlets with easy recipes for a better world. He has spent more time in the fields than captivating audiences. However, it is a symptom of a cultural disease that few people know Sanjaya Rajaram – and many know Vandana Shiva. This former is an Indian agronomist, who won the 2014 World Food Prize, has picked up the torch of Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution who, in the second half of the last century, doubled grain production in much of the globe, as a result of better seeds, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. Rajaram has developed 500 new varieties of wheat grown in 51 countries. He came to Italy for the World Food Research and Innovation Forum promoted by the Emilia Romagna region. Continue reading →

Germany debates CRISPR

Posted on by
Reply

leopoldina

Germany stands out as the European country most interested in fostering an informed debate on CRISPR many uses. Today an interdisciplinary group of experts from the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) has published a Discussion Paper entitled “Ethical and legal assessment of genome editing in research on human cells”.  Experiments involving human embryos are prohibited by law in the country but the document suggests a possible compromise. Research should be permitted on “orphaned” embryos created for reproductive purposes but no longer going to be used for reproduction. In February the German academy co-organized a meeting on edited plants, discussing what kind of regulation would be suitable. In 2005 they published a statement on “The opportunities and limits of genome editing” and another one on molecular plant breeding. According to a Leopoldina official press-release, the annual assembly “will be intensively addressing the topic of genome editing” later this year.

Six questions for the YouTuber singing CRISPR

Posted on by
Reply

The best explanations of CRISPR ever heard in 413 words, or 4 minutes and half of listening, is not an article from a prestigious science journal but a YouTube video where the wonders of the new technique of genetic modification are sung a cappella. We couldn’t not interview the author. Tim Blais was a fresh physics graduate when he turned its science-music into a professional activity by means of crowdfunding. That about CRISPR is probably his best video and has quickly become viral.    Continue reading →

Light bulb or bomb?

Posted on by
Reply

 

augias bomba atomicaCRISPR ’s debut in the cultural programming of the Italian television occurred at “Quante storie”, a 30 minutes book show aired by the public broadcasting company (Rai 3, 23 March 2017). It went with a genuine interest into understanding the science of genome editing and many questions from the classic repertoire concerning biotechnology, from worries about economic interests at play (but if we want drugs, the pharma industry must be there) to the risk of using the new technique for eugenics purposes (the long shadow of Nazism still makes us think blond children would be favored). Continue reading →

Edited crops, organic farming and Greenpeace Mag

Posted on by
1

fiblThe German publication Greenpeace Magazin interviewed Urs Niggli, the director of FiBL, a leading research institute on organic agriculture. In his opinion genome editing is going to be useful and edited crops should not be classified as GMOs but assessed on a case by case basis. The text below by Frauke Ladleif was translated and posted with the kind permission of Greenpeace Magazin/Hamburg. Continue reading →