GAME CHANGER …Technology is a potential boon to producers, consumers and animals<\/p>\n
\u201cHeritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals,\u201d a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, was written by a committee of experts, including William Muir, professor emeritus of animal sciences at Purdue University. (Purdue Agricultural Communications)<\/p>\n
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Farmers have been improving the genetics of their animals for thousands of years through selective breeding. Wild boars were bred until they lost their tusks and gained fattier meat. Breeding cattle were chosen for favorable traits like muscularity or high milk production.<\/p>\n
At the same time, advances in genomics and biotechnology have allowed scientists to make precise changes to animal DNA, creating genetic modifications that can be inherited.<\/p>\n
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine<\/a> looks at these new technologies, evaluates potential risks and makes recommendations for the future. The report, \u201cHeritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals<\/a>,\u201d was written by a committee of experts, including William Muir, professor emeritus of animal sciences at Purdue University.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a potential game changer,\u201d Muir said of the new generation of technology.<\/p>\n Technologies that transfer DNA from one animal to another (transgenics) have been used for several decades, but the debut of CRISPR in 2012 brought the science to a new level. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a tool that allows researchers to make precise changes to DNA. These changes can be \u201cknock-ins\u201d \u2014 additions of new alleles for favorable traits \u2014 or \u201cknockouts,\u201d the removal of undesirable alleles. When changes are made to an animal\u2019s germ line, or the cells that develop into sperm and eggs, they are called heritable genetic modifications (HGMs).<\/p>\n \u201cThe main advance in recent technology is that, with classic transgenics, the genes were inserted at random \u2014 we had no control over where they went, so they could have unknown consequences,\u201d Muir said. \u201cNow, with CRISPR, we can insert new genes in areas exactly where we want them.\u201d<\/p>\n Though CRISPR-modified plants are now ubiquitous in American agriculture, the introduction of similarly modified animals has been slowed by a complex regulatory process. Only a few genetically modified animals have been FDA approved for human consumption. One is AquAdvantage salmon, an Atlantic salmon engineered to grow much more quickly. The salmon was approved for sale by the FDA in 2015, after years of testing. But its journey to market was hardly smooth \u2014 dubbed \u201cfrankenfish\u201d by opponents, it was subject to mandatory GMO labeling. Though the controversy eventually died down, it likely slowed companies\u2019 eagerness to pursue similar innovations, Muir said.<\/p>\n The only CRISPR-edited animal approved for consumption is a type of beef cattle edited to have short hair, which makes them more heat tolerant. The edited cattle were FDA approved in 2022.<\/p>\n