Before we enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner, we want to take a moment to think about the important role that biotechnology can play in securing the global food supply and ensuring access to nutrition for everyone. Here’s an example of how one BIO member is developing breakthroughs that could help feed the world.
Meet Calyxt, the Minnesota biotech company (and BIO member) that develops crops like high oleic soybeans, which have more heart-healthy oleic acid and less saturated fat than conventional soybeans, explains Innovature.
Now, the company has developed a high-fiber wheat, “the world’s first gene-edited, consumer-focused wheat product,” reports Grand Forks Herald. It’s expected to go into commercial planting in 2022.
Calyxt has a number of innovations in the works that could help feed the world—including “better-yielding hemp, cold-tolerant oats, pulses with improved protein profiles and flavor, and alfalfa with enhanced traits including improved digestibility in livestock.”
This research is done with CRISPR, “a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes” that allows scientists to make tiny, precise changes to an organism’s own DNA, as BIO’s Cornelia Poku says in this helpful explainer.
But policy and public opinion need to catch up: “Ag officials and scientists have tried to persuade the public, much of which is skeptical of or even worried about GMOs, to accept the use of CRISPR,” says the Grand Forks Herald.
What can we do? BIO continues to share the facts about CRISPR at Innovature and on our website, and remind policymakers of the need for workable, science-based regulations of this technology.
