Alison Van Eenennaam’s research may revolutionize how we select for preferable traits of livestock. The University of California – Davis animal scientist is using the gene editing process known as CRISPR < link > for a series of experiments, including helping cows deliver more male offspring. She sees her research as making changes in animals faster than producers can. The process has created some success, including pigs developed by the University of Missouri that are resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.
Source: WIRED, March 19, 2019. Link. Can Eenennaam thinks she’s found a solution. She plans to take a group of bulls, knock out the gene that allows them to create sperm, and swap in a replacement from a superior animal—perhaps even one that carries the edits for hornlessness or all-male offspring. The result would be ordinary bulls with, as Van Eenennaam puts, “excellent balls.” Rather than spreading their own mediocre genes, they’d spread the elite genes of others—and they’d do it faster than ranchers could manage on their own.
INSIGHTS: This is an excellent piece because of its focus on the benefits that research can eventually deliver. It also details the frustration that a slow-moving regulatory system brings to researchers’ results. As it did with GMO opportunities, the process for setting supportive laws for gene editing appears to be sputtering.