Abstract
Current events and weather forecasts this summer in North America (and I am sure many other parts of the world) present an unbearable reminder of the many climate change-related issues we face. Temperature and meteorological patterns across the globe must increase our sense of urgency to invest more resources to collectively achieve our sustainability goals in a timely manner. It seems we are making little progress and quickly running out of time. Predictably, such grand challenges present fitting opportunities to deploy equally grand technologies to make an impact. Indeed, the combination of genome editing, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology beckons.
A European Change of Mind
The release of the newest draft proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on plants obtained by certain new genomic technologies and their food and feed (aiming to amend EU Regulation 2017/7625) is an encouraging turn of events. 1 Presumably, the arguments presented by numerous scientists, entrepreneurs, regulators, and thought leaders that initially fell on deaf ears in Brussels have since changed a few minds. Both the strong and the soft opinions of key stakeholders formally provided through the EU consultation and feedback process over the past 5 years have been repeatedly, and hopefully successfully, iterated.
The widespread success of CRISPR medicines in the clinic is substantiating the safety and efficacy of genome editing technologies in humans, derisking its deployment in plants. Likewise, the global deregulation of edited crops in several continents, including in Europe, is compelling the EU to contextualize agricultural regulations in a globally interconnected world. Most edited crops that may be imported for food and feed into the EU are indistinguishable from conventional breeding outcomes that could render monitoring and regulations impossible to enforce.
The draft explicitly highlights that the current regulatory framework is not suitable for plant products that could be “obtained by targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis.” The coverage of indels (insertions/deletions) up to 20 nucleotides and flexibility for the editing of genes within the gene pool of a taxonomic species is encouraging and enables first-generation editing of crops of interest. Furthermore, the operational, environmental, and bioeconomic upside of edited crops is compelling governments and regulators to enable the deployment of editing technologies in agriculture. Importantly, the proposal highlights the estimated financial impacts anticipated by the proposal, and presented a legally defensible framework to subject certain engineering outcomes to remain regulated as genetically modified organisms.
The CRISPR Journal hopes that the strategies, messages, and efforts deployed to woo regulators will be suitably adapted for consumers and found equally agreeable. We will need good stories and good storytellers to reassure some of the uneducated public and convince some of the skeptic non-governmental organizations. As edited crops are now commercialized in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, this is ushering in a new era of sustainable agriculture on a geographically more inclusive and practical basis.
Blazing a Trail for CRISPR in Forestry
As illustrated on the cover of this issue, recent studies in the deployment of genome editing in trees are opening new avenues for sustainable forestry. The “First Cut” by Yiping Qi and Gen Li (see page 305) 2 covers two related articles on gene editing in poplar trees—one in this issue from 339 (University of Georgia), 3 another from Jack Wang and my colleagues at NC State, recently published in Science. 4
Our study showed that multiplex genome editing can yield poplar trees with reduced lignin and altered fiber content to generate healthy trees that hold substantial promise for the pulping industry. Besides providing a proof of concept that wood fibers can be engineered using CRISPR, we showed that the edited trees can be used to generate paper, while providing substantial operational benefits. The resulting industrial pulping process would require less wood, energy, and chemical inputs, while releasing production capacity. Remarkably, modeling results predicted substantial reduction in the corresponding global warming potential. This opens the door for more sustainable forestry on a global basis, with several commercially relevant species in play, such as pine and eucalyptus, widely used in timber, pulping, and other industries.
That said, the geographical and time scales under which forests are grown are a sobering reminder of the work and challenges that lie ahead, with anticipated commercial deployment of these approaches at scale anticipated in the 2040s. This might be just in time for some of our lofty 2050 sustainability goals. Of course, the scale of the economic and environmental benefits that we collectively stand to gain with more sustainable forestry, at a time when carbon capture is a strategic priority, is tremendous. Encouragingly, as trees can live hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years, such advances may benefit several human generations, so we must diligently and responsibly ensure that we collectively blaze a path for more sustainable forestry.