The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC – part of UK Research and Innovation, UKRI) and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, with the support of UKRI’s Sciencewise programme, are delighted to announce a new public dialogue on genome editing in farmed animals.
Genome editing – known commonly as ‘gene editing’ – is the precise, targeted, alteration of a DNA sequence in a living cell. It enables changes to the genome – which aim to secure certain physical traits in new generations of farmed animals – to be made much faster and with greater precision than other types of genetic technologies, or through traditional breeding methods. In the UK, genome editing techniques are not currently used in breeding animals that are sold for food, but research in this area is well advanced, and some genome edited animals have already been approved for consumption in other parts of the world. Several research groups have successfully demonstrated the use of the techniques to make functional changes to animals’ genomes, without any apparent adverse effects. Read the full artcicle here.
