A CAST Presentation: "Genome Editing in Agriculture: Methods, Applications, and

Dr. Adam Bogdanove is a professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology at Cornell University. He researches mechanisms of bacterial plant pathogenesis and plant defense to develop improved crop resistance to bacterial diseases, in part using genome editing. Bogdanove pioneered the use of TAL effector proteins from the plant pathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas as genome editing tools and has played a major role in the development of the field. He earned his B.S. in biology from Yale in 1987 and his Ph.D. in plant pathology from Cornell in 1997, and he carried out postdoctoral work at Purdue University and the Boyce Thompson Institute before joining the faculty at Iowa State in 2000 and moving to Cornell in 2012.

CAST will release this issue paper, which will be the focal point for the presentation, on July 9, 2018 when it will be available as a free download from the CAST website. (www.cast-science.org/publications)

Contact

Melissa Sly
Council for Agricultural Science and Technology
515-292-2125
msly@cast-science.org

10:00 a.m. at
Association of Public & Land-grant Universities
1307 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400
*Located right beside 1331 H Street NW

~cohosted by APLU~

Noon Lunch Seminar in 1300 Longworth House Office Building
Chick Fil-A Lunch, Veggie Option (if desired, please request)

2:30 p.m. in 328A Russell Senate Office Building

~cohosted by NC-FAR~

ABSTRACT
Genome editing is the process of making precise, targeted sequence changes in the deoxyribonucleic acid of living cells and organisms. Recent advances have made genome editing widely applicable, offering the opportunity to rapidly advance basic and applied biology. In the face of the mounting food, fiber, feed, and fuel needs and the decreasing availability of land and water caused by global population growth, as well as the challenges climate change poses to agriculture, genome editing for crop and livestock improvement is garnering increasing attention. This issue paper describes how genome editing is performed, the types of “edits” that can be made, how the process relates to traditional breeding and conventional genetic engineering, and the potential limitations of the approach. The paper also presents an overview of the current landscape of governance of genome editing, including existing regulations, international agreements, and standards and codes of conduct, as well as a discussion of factors that affect governance, including comparison with other approaches to genetic modification, environmental and animal welfare impacts of specific applications, values of producers and consumers, and economic impacts, among others. Recognizing both that genome editing for crop and livestock improvement has the potential to substantially contribute to human welfare and sustainability and that successful deployment of genome editing in agriculture will benefit from science-informed, value-attentive regulation that promotes both innovation and transparency (alongside strategies to improve food distribution, decrease socioeconomic disparities, mitigate barriers to trade, and moderate political and market dependencies), the paper aims to provide a conceptual and knowledge-based foundation for regulatory agencies, policy- and lawmakers, private and public research institutions, industry, and the general public.