No GMO

No GMO

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Research from the University of Missouri lab of Dr. Melissa Mitchum employs a technique called gene editing in an effort to strengthen a plant's ability to fight off the plague of nematodes. Dr. Mitchum is trying to find a way to interrupt specific biological processes and enhance a plants resistance to invasion by the nematode. I asked her if this is essentially genetic modification as in GMO. "There are new approaches that have come out in more recent years genome editing tools that will hopefully allow us to do it in a way that is not genetically modified. There are multiple approaches one can use to do this and also we can take advantage of natural genetic variation. It's a genetic modification, you're still making a modification to the gene in the plant but you are able to get the trans gene back out. You go in, you manipulate a target gene genetically and then you remove the transgene so it is no longer a transgenic plant but it retains that modification that you made. Whereas with a genetically modified plant, if you think about genetic engineering, there may be a case where you actually take a gene from another organism and you put it into the plant. Or you take a gene from another planet like taking a gene from a potato and putting it in a soybean, so you put a trans-gene into the plant, that's different. The genome editing allows you to go in, make a modification to a target gene within the plant itself and it is not transgenic, there is no transit gene."
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