Do you remember prime editing? It’s the new ‘search-and-replace’ genome editing technology that mediates targeted insertions, deletions, all 12 possible base-to-base conversions, and combinations thereof. The first good news is that David Liu et al. adapted prime editors for use in rice and wheat, so don’t miss their paper in Nature Biotechnology.
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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.
CRISPeR FRENZY 