CRISPR-Cas9 technology—often billed as “programmable DNA scissors”—first hit the headlines in 2012. Since then, it has been used in everything from cancer research to making more productive cells for cultivated meat. But what is the potential of gene editing (of which CRISPR-Cas9 is one example) in plant breeding?
AgFunderNews caught up with Tom Adams, PhD, CEO at gene editing specialist Pairwise at the World Agri-Tech summit in San Francisco to get the lowdown on how Pairwise is using CRISPR tools to develop everything from corn with more kernels to seedless and thornless blackberries.
Speed and precision
Unlike transgenic plants—which are classified as GMOs for regulatory purposes as foreign DNA from another species is introduced—gene editing involves tinkering with species’ native genes, says Adams. In most jurisdictions, it faces fewer regulatory hurdles.
Critically, says Adams, gene editing can deliver both precision and speed. In a traditional cross-breeding scenario, for example, you might get the trait you want, but also a bunch of things you don’t want if you cross, say, one domesticated corn variety with a wild relative.
“It’s a lot more efficient to go in and change the couple of things that you want, rather than trying to sort through a million progeny [of parent plants] to find the one that has just the right combination of things you want,” he points out.
While Pairwise has basic “cutting” tools enabling it to make precise “edits” such as deleting or inactivating a gene responsible for an undesirable trait, it also has more sophisticated “base editing” and “templated editing” tools, says Adams.
“This ability to not just knock out undesired traits, but rather to replicate the variation that nature uses, enables us to create the same sort of nuanced changes that occur in nature.”
In our conversation, we discussed…
- What’s exciting about CRISPR over existing plant breeding tools?
- Where does it present the biggest opportunities and where does it not really make sense at the moment?
- What’s in the gene editing toolbox at Pairwise?
- What is Pairwise working on in-house and with partners?
- How do regulators view CRISPR gene editing vs some other genetic engineering tools?
Further reading:
🎥Ohalo CEO Dave Friedberg on ‘boosted’ breeding: ‘Yields are through the roof’
Tropic to launch non-browning bananas in March, extended shelf-life bananas by year-end
Pairwise raises $40m series C, forms JV with Corteva to accelerate gene editing on row crops
