Non-safety Assessments of Genome-Edited Organisms: Should They be Included in Regulation?

A Study on Genetically Engineered Foods: Need, Benefits, Risk, and Current Knowledge

Food requirements have always been a top priority, and with the exponential growth of the human population, there is an increasing need for large quantities of food. Traditional cultivation methods are not able to meet the current demand for food products. One significant challenge is the shortened shelf-life of naturally occurring food items, which directly contributes to food scarcity. Contaminating substances such as weeds and pests play a crucial role in this issue. In response, researchers have introduced genetically engineered (GE) food as a potential solution. These food products are typically created by adding or replacing genes in the DNA of naturally occurring foods. GE foods offer various advantages, including increased quality and quantity of food production, adaptability to various climatic conditions, modification of vitamin and mineral levels, and prolonged shelf life. They address the major concerns of global food scarcity and food security. However, the techniques used in the production of GE foods may not be universally acceptable due to the genetic alteration of animal genes into plants or vice versa. Additionally, their unique nature necessitates further long-term studies. This study delves into the procedures and growth stages of DNA sequencing, covering the benefits, risks, industrial relevance, current knowledge, and future challenges of GE foods. GE foods have the potential to extend the shelf life of food items, alleviate food shortages, and fulfill the current nutritional food demand.

Trends and challenges of fruit by-products utilization: insights into safety, sensory, and benefits of the use for the development of innovative healthy food: a review

A significant portion of the human diet is comprised of fruits, which are consumed globally either raw or after being processed. A huge amount of waste and by-products such as skins, seeds, cores, rags, rinds, pomace, etc. are being generated in our homes and agro-processing industries every day. According to previous statistics, nearly half of the fruits are lost or discarded during the entire processing chain. The concern arises when those wastes and by-products damage the environment and simultaneously cause economic losses. There is a lot of potential in these by-products for reuse in a variety of applications, including the isolation of valuable bioactive ingredients and their application in developing healthy and functional foods. The development of novel techniques for the transformation of these materials into marketable commodities may offer a workable solution to this waste issue while also promoting sustainable economic growth from the bio-economic viewpoint. This approach can manage waste as well as add value to enterprises. The goal of this study is twofold based on this scenario. The first is to present a brief overview of the most significant bioactive substances found in those by-products. The second is to review the current status of their valorization including the trends and techniques, safety assessments, sensory attributes, and challenges. Moreover, specific attention is drawn to the future perspective, and some solutions are discussed in this report.

Processes for regulating genetically modified and gene edited plants

Innovation in agriculture has been essential in improving productivity of crops and forages to support a growing population, improving living standards while contributing toward maintaining environment integrity, human health, and wellbeing through provision of more nutritious, varied, and abundant food sources. A crucial part of that innovation has involved a range of techniques for both expanding and exploiting the genetic potential of plants. However, some techniques used for generating new variation for plant breeders to exploit are deemed higher risk than others despite end products of both processes at times being for all intents and purposes identical for the benefits they provide. As a result, public concerns often triggered by poor communication from innovators, resulting in mistrust and suspicion has, in turn, caused the development of a range of regulatory systems. The logic and motivations for modes of regulation used are reviewed and how the benefits from use of these technologies can be delivered more efficiently and effectively is discussed.

Genetic modification strategies for enhancing plant resilience to abiotic stresses in the context of climate change

Enhancing the resilience of plants to abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, heat, and cold, is crucial for ensuring global food security challenge in the context of climate change. The adverse effects of climate change, characterized by rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events, pose significant threats to agricultural systems worldwide. Genetic modification strategies offer promising approaches to develop crops with improved abiotic stress tolerance. This review article provides a comprehensive overview of various genetic modification techniques employed to enhance plant resilience. These strategies include the introduction of stress-responsive genes, transcription factors, and regulatory elements to enhance stress signaling pathways. Additionally, the manipulation of hormone signaling pathways, osmoprotectant accumulation, and antioxidant defense mechanisms is discussed. The use of genome editing tools, such as CRISPR-Cas9, for precise modification of target genes related to stress tolerance is also explored. Furthermore, the challenges and future prospects of genetic modification for abiotic stress tolerance are highlighted. Understanding and harnessing the potential of genetic modification strategies can contribute to the development of resilient crop varieties capable of withstanding adverse environmental conditions caused by climate change, thereby ensuring sustainable agricultural productivity and food security.

Ethical and legal implications of gene editing in plant breeding: a systematic literature review

Biotechnology policies and regulations must be revised and updated to reflect the most recent advances in plant-breeding technology. New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBT) such as gene editing have been applied to address the myriad of challenges in plant breeding, while the use of NPBT as emerging biotechnological tools raises legal and ethical concerns. This study aims to highlight how gene editing is operationalized in the existing literature and examine the critical issues of ethical and legal issues of gene editing for plant breeding. We carried out a systematic literature review (SLR) to provide the current states of ethical and legal discourses surrounding this topic. We also identified critical research priority areas and policy gaps that must be addressed when designing the future governance of gene editing in plant breeding.

CRISPR/Cas9 technology as an innovative approach to enhancing the phytoremediation: Concepts and implications

Phytoremediation is currently an active field of research focusing chiefly on identifying and characterizing novel and high chelation action super-accumulators. In the last few years, molecular tools have been widely exploited to understand better metal absorption, translocation, cation, and tolerance mechanisms in plants. Recently more advanced CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology is also employed to enhance detoxification efficiency. Further, advances in molecular science will trigger the understanding of adaptive phytoremediation ability plant production in current global warming conditions. The enhanced abilities of nucleases for genome modification can improve plant repair capabilities by modifying the genome, thereby achieving a sustainable ecosystem. The purpose of this manuscript focuses on biotechnology's fundamental principles and application to promote climate-resistant metal plants, especially the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system for enhancing the phytoremediation of harmful contamination and pollutants.

CRISPR/Cas9 is a powerful tool for precise genome editing of legume crops: a review

Legumes are an imperative source of food and proteins across the globe. They also improve soil fertility through symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF). Genome editing (GE) is now a novel way of developing desirable traits in legume crops. Genome editing tools like clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) system permits a defined genome alteration to improve crop performance. This genome editing tool is reliable, cost-effective, and versatile, and it has to deepen in terms of use compared to other tools. Recently, many novel variations have drawn the attention of plant geneticists, and efforts are being made to develop trans-gene-free cultivars for ensuring biosafety measures. This review critically elaborates on the recent development in genome editing of major legumes crops. We hope this updated review will provide essential informations for the researchers working on legumes genome editing. In general, the CRISPR/Cas9 novel GE technique can be integrated with other techniques like omics approaches and next-generation tools to broaden the range of gene editing and develop any desired legumes traits. Regulatory ethics of CRISPR/Cas9 are also discussed.

Labeling of Genetically Modified (GM) Foods in Peru: Current Dogma and Insights of the Regulatory and Legal Statutes

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and afflicted human lives and been a transformative catalyst leading to closure of many companies, disrupting mental health, and reducing access to food and exacerbating food insecurity. This presents an opportunity to reflect on and examine genetically modified (GM) foods and their effective legislative regulation for the benefit of consumers. This review presents a detailed analysis of GM foods' regulation in Peru and the analysis of certain specific cases that show the need for greater regulation of the industry.

Climate solution or corporate co-optation? US and Canadian publics’ views on agricultural gene editing

The dexterity and affordability of gene-editing technologies promise wide-ranging applications in agriculture. Aiming to take advantage of this, proponents emphasize benefits such as the climate-mitigating promises of gene editing. Critics, on the other hand, argue that gene editing will perpetuate industrialized forms of agriculture and its concomitant environmental and social problems. Across a representative sample of US and Canadian residents (n = 1478), we investigate public views and perceptions of agricultural gene editing. We advance existing survey-based studies, which tend to focus on whether knowledge, familiarity, trust, or perceptions of naturalness predict views on gene editing. Instead, we examine whether broader societal concerns about industrialized food systems—a key claim about genetic engineering launched by critics—predicts comfort with gene editing. We also explore the predictive power of views of climate change as an urgent problem, following proponent arguments. Survey results explore gene editing views in reference to specific cases (e.g., drought-tolerant wheat) and specific alternatives (e.g., versus pesticide use). We find that people critical of industrialized food systems were most likely to express overall absolute opposition to the technology, whereas those concerned with the imminence of climate change were more likely to support climate-relevant gene editing. Our findings suggest the need for further research into the conditions upon which public groups find gene editing compelling or not—namely, if applications enhance or counter industrial food systems, or offer particular climate adaptive benefits. Furthermore, we argue that attention to broader societal priorities in surveys of perceptions may help address calls for responsible research and innovation as concerns gene editing.

Sustainable use of CRISPR/Cas in fish aquaculture: the biosafety perspective

Aquaculture is becoming the primary source of seafood for human diets, and farmed fish aquaculture is one of its fastest growing sectors. The industry currently faces several challenges including infectious and parasitic diseases, reduced viability, fertility reduction, slow growth, escapee fish and environmental pollution. The commercialization of the growth-enhanced AquAdvantage salmon and the CRISPR/Cas9-developed tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) proffers genetic engineering and genome editing tools, e.g. CRISPR/Cas, as potential solutions to these challenges. Future traits being developed in different fish species include disease resistance, sterility, and enhanced growth. Despite these notable advances, off-target effect and non-clarification of trait-related genes among other technical challenges hinder full realization of CRISPR/Cas potentials in fish breeding. In addition, current regulatory and risk assessment frameworks are not fit-for purpose regarding the challenges of CRISPR/Cas notwithstanding that public and regulatory acceptance are key to commercialization of products of the new technology. In this study, we discuss how CRISPR/Cas can be used to overcome some of these limitations focusing on diseases and environmental release in farmed fish aquaculture. We further present technical limitations, regulatory and risk assessment challenges of the use of CRISPR/Cas, and proffer research strategies that will provide much-needed data for regulatory decisions, risk assessments, increased public awareness and sustainable applications of CRISPR/Cas in fish aquaculture with emphasis on Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) breeding.

Genetically modified crop regulations: scope and opportunity using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing approach

Global demand for food is increasing day by day due to an increase in population and shrinkage of the arable land area. To meet this increasing demand, there is a need to develop high-yielding varieties that are nutritionally enriched and tolerant against environmental stresses. Various techniques are developed for improving crop quality such as mutagenesis, intergeneric crosses, and translocation breeding. Later, with the development of genetic engineering, genetically modified crops came up with the transgene insertion approach which helps to withstand adverse conditions. The process or product-focused approaches are used for regulating genetically modified crops with their risk analysis on the environment and public health. However, recent advances in gene-editing technologies have led to a new era of plant breeding by developing techniques including site-directed nucleases, zinc finger nucleases, and the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR associated protein 9 (Cas9) that involve precise gene editing without the transfer of foreign genes. But these techniques always remain in debate for their regulation status and public acceptance. The European countries and New Zealand, consider the gene-edited plants under the category of genetically modified organism (GMO) regulation while the USA frees the gene-edited plants from such type of regulations. Considering them under the category of GMO makes a long and complicated approval process to use them, which would decrease their immediate commercial value. There is a need to develop strong regulatory approaches for emerging technologies that expedite crop research and attract people to adopt these new varieties without hesitation.

Promoting Ethically Responsible Use of Agricultural Biotechnology

Growing global demands for food, bioenergy, and specialty products, along with the threat posed by various environmental changes, present substantial challenges for agricultural production. Agricultural biotechnology offers a promising avenue for meeting these challenges; however, ethical and sociocultural concerns must first be addressed, to ensure widespread public trust and uptake. To be effective, we need to develop solutions that are ethically responsible, socially responsive, relevant to people of different cultural and social backgrounds, and conveyed to the public in a convincing and straightforward manner. Here, we highlight how ethical approaches, principled decision-making strategies, citizen-stakeholder participation, effective science communication, and bioethics education should be used to guide responsible use of agricultural biotechnology.

Ugandan stakeholder hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control: new directions for gene drive risk governance

Background

The African Union’s High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies identified gene drive mosquitoes as a priority technology for malaria elimination. The first field trials are expected in 5–10 years in Uganda, Mali or Burkina Faso. In preparation, regional and international actors are developing risk governance guidelines which will delineate the framework for identifying and evaluating risks. Scientists and bioethicists have called for African stakeholder involvement in these developments, arguing the knowledge and perspectives of those people living in malaria-afflicted countries is currently missing. However, few African stakeholders have been involved to date, leaving a knowledge gap about the local social-cultural as well as ecological context in which gene drive mosquitoes will be tested and deployed. This study investigates and analyses Ugandan stakeholders’ hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control and explores the new directions needed for risk governance.

Methods

This qualitative study draws on 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ugandan stakeholders in 2019. It explores their hopes for the technology and the risks they believed pertinent. Coding began at a workshop and continued through thematic analysis.

Results

Participants’ hopes and concerns for gene drive mosquitoes to address malaria fell into three themes: (1) ability of gene drive mosquitoes to prevent malaria infection; (2) impacts of gene drive testing and deployment; and, (3) governance. Stakeholder hopes fell almost exclusively into the first theme while concerns were spread across all three. The study demonstrates that local stakeholders are able and willing to contribute relevant and important knowledge to the development of risk frameworks.

Conclusions

International processes can provide high-level guidelines, but risk decision-making must be grounded in the local context if it is to be robust, meaningful and legitimate. Decisions about whether or not to release gene drive mosquitoes as part of a malaria control programme will need to consider the assessment of both the risks and the benefits of gene drive mosquitoes within a particular social, political, ecological, and technological context. Just as with risks, benefits—and importantly, the conditions that are necessary to realize them—must be identified and debated in Uganda and its neighbouring countries.