GENE EDITING via CRISPR/CAS9
‘Gene or Genome Editing’, a broad category which includes several techniques among which the newest and most powerful is CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeat-CRISPR associated protein 9). The technique derives from a natural bacterial defense system that scientists have “programmed” to target and edit DNA at precise locations.
THIS TECHNOLOGY:
can be used to enhance, silence, insert or remove desired traits in less time in a wide variety of crops.
allows to produce plant varieties in a similar – but more precise - manner to that of conventional breeding techniques.
Plants differ from genetically modified or transgenic plants and some of them represent a further advancement also in respect to the NBT defined cisgenesis, which implies the genetic modification of a plant with a gene from a sexually compatible plants (i.e. a gene which might be transferred also following many cycles of crossing and selection).