Genome editing technology will advance Nigeria’s food production —Dr Gidado

As Nigeria continues its quest to get a lasting solution towards achieving food security, the Director, Agricultural Biotechnology at National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Dr Rose Gidado speaks on the benefits of genome editing and biotechnology in advancing food production. 

Genome editing is a more precise and concise process that is less time consuming.

Within a year, one is done with it. There is no regulation around it. Regulation makes the GM technology longer, because you are bringing a gene from an unrelated species to an unrelated species so of course you have to look at safety aspects.

In genome editing, you’re not bringing genes from anywhere, you’re just working within the genome of that crop or animal or whatever, working within the system, we are not transferring any gene. So there is no issue of either trans-gene or GMO.

Let me give you an illustration:

Someone is sick, and maybe it’s been discovered that something is responsible, they’ve done some Diagnosis, the doctor has done some checks, and is suspecting that there’s something in his system that needs to be removed for the individual to get well. So the surgeon proceeds to open up the individual’s body and performs an operation to remove the issue.

That’s just like genome editing. You open up the plant, find out what makes this plant to have certain diseases or what is making the plant not be drought tolerant, look for the gene because in life sciences, genes are the blueprint of life and genes are located in the DNA, they’re responsible for every thing around us every happening inside us.

Once you locate the gene that’s making that plant to be susceptible to a certain disease, maybe Bacteria Blight in Irish potatoes, or the Fall Armyworm and stem borer, go for that gene that is making that maize to be attacked by Fall Armyworm and take off the gene. Once you do that, the plant will be resistant to Fall Armyworm or stem borer or the bacteria blight in potatoes.

That’s it. You’re not bringing anything else outside and there’s no transgenesis at all. So it’s safe and that’s everything. Once that is done, the next thing is to prepare it for farmers. It doesn’t go through any regulatory process making it faster for farmers to use, except if your plant is already a transgenic crop, like now we have Cowpea that is already resistant to Maruca, and one still wants to use genome editing on the BT cowpea to have another trait.

You know, every crop is susceptible to several insects and several other diseases, so it’s not just one. If you will take care of one, there are several others. So, I took care of Cowpea to resist Maruca, but I still want to use that Maruca resistant cowpea for another thing, but I want to use gene editing, in that case, because the cowpea is already regarded as a GMO, I have to go through a lot of regulatory processes, even though I am using gene editing.

Culled from Nigerian Tribune

https://tribuneonlineng.com/genome-editing-technology-will-advance-nigerias-food-production-dr-gidado/