Genome Editing and Responsible Innovation, Can They Be Reconciled?

Bruce, Ann; Bruce, Donald

doi:10.1007/s10806-019-09789-w

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Many of these regulatory decisions have been made in the absence of engagement with the scientific community, industry, stakeholders or publics ( Bruce and Bruce, 2019 ). In particular, the judgment of the European Court of Justice to subject gene edited organisms to GMO regulations, but to exempt organisms produced using the older less precise process of mutagenesis breeding defied risk proportionality and reasonableness, to the dismay of European scientists ( Hundleby and Harwood, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Gene Editing Versus Conventional Breeding to Introgress the POLLED Allele Into the Tropically Adapted Australian Beef Cattle Population

et al. 2021

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Dehorning is the process of physically removing horns to protect animals and humans from injury, but the process is costly, unpleasant, and faces increasing public scrutiny. Genetic selection for polled (hornless), which is genetically dominant to horned, is a long-term solution to eliminate the need for dehorning. However, due to the limited number of polled Australian Brahman bulls, the northern Australian beef cattle population remains predominantly horned. The potential to use gene editing to produce high-genetic-merit polled cattle was recently demonstrated. To further explore the concept, this study simulated introgression of the POLLED allele into a tropically adapted Australian beef cattle population via conventional breeding or gene editing (top 1% or 10% of seedstock bulls/year) for 3 polled mating schemes and compared results to baseline selection on genetic merit (Japan Ox selection index, $JapOx) alone, over the course of 20 years. The baseline scenario did not significantly decrease the 20-year HORNED allele frequency (80%), but resulted in one of the fastest rates of genetic gain ($8.00/year). Compared to the baseline, the conventional breeding scenarios where polled bulls were preferentially used for breeding, regardless of their genetic merit, significantly decreased the 20-year HORNED allele frequency (30%), but resulted in a significantly slower rate of genetic gain ($6.70/year, P ≤ 0.05). The mating scheme that required the exclusive use of homozygous polled bulls, resulted in the lowest 20-year HORNED allele frequency (8%), but this conventional breeding scenario resulted in the slowest rate of genetic gain ($5.50/year). The addition of gene editing the top 1% or 10% of seedstock bull calves/year to each conventional breeding scenario resulted in significantly faster rates of genetic gain (up to $8.10/year, P ≤ 0.05). Overall, our study demonstrates that, due to the limited number of polled Australian Brahman bulls, strong selection pressure on polled will be necessary to meaningfully increase the number of polled animals in this population. Moreover, these scenarios illustrate how gene editing could be a tool for accelerating the development of high-genetic-merit homozygous polled sires to mitigate the current trade-off of slower genetic gain associated with decreasing HORNED allele frequency in the Australian Brahman population.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Gene Editing Versus Conventional Breeding to Introgress the POLLED Allele Into the Tropically Adapted Australian Beef Cattle Population

et al. 2021

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“…GM is a powerful technology that can revolutionize the world in medicine and agriculture. As in gene therapy and molecular medicine, we have an obligation to exploit genetic technologies for the good of mankind [151][152][153] . That will require greater efforts to bring the public into conversations through open science-based forums such as those sponsored by the Genome Writers Guild [154] , a society committed to building a better future for humanity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulatory issues for genetically modified animals

Hackett

2020

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.

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Precision genetics and breeding have the potential to meet the agricultural needs and goals of the world in the 21st century. These needs include increasing the efficiency of production of animals and improving their products with minimal impact on the environment. The USA is the major innovator in genomic science and the acknowledged leader in formulating policies to regulate genetic applications in medicine and agriculture. However, governments worldwide have been exceedingly reluctant to support the introduction of genetically modified (GM) animals into agriculture. Regulatory policies have stagnated due to legal guidelines that could not anticipate the needs and solutions that are evident today. This must change if we are to maintain planetary integrity. I propose a new, market-based regulatory model for GM livestock that has both a strong scientific foundation and has worked for 10000 years. The model is similar to that for information technology in which specific algorithms drive computer and cell phone applications. Genome engineers write genetic algorithms that drive the traits in biological organisms. Accordingly, GM products should be viewed in terms of their use and public benefit rather than by limitations to the genetic programing coming from a few highly vocal groups. Genetic algorithms (Genapps) of the 21st century will include not only introduction of synthetic genes, but also complete natural and synthetic biochemical pathways to produce agricultural products that are maximally efficient, healthy to humans and animals, and sustainable in an era of changing climates while avoiding environmental degradation.

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“…The RRI governance model is explicit about how society engages in both the identification of and decisions about what is and is not chosen to be regulated from the set of technologies and technology products that might cause harm. In the RRI framework, "technological innovation should not just be the activity of the principal players of science, industry and government, with the general public merely in the role of recipient consumers" (Bruce and Bruce, 2019). It is a responsive and anticipatory governance which recognizes the highly resourced hype of science and technology imaginaries that undermine the effectiveness of a society to make predictions about its own future (Heinemann, 2009;Macnaghten and Habets, 2020).…”

Section: Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Differentiated impacts of human interventions on nature

Heinemann

Paull

Walker

et al. 2021

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Biotechnology describes a range of human activities in medicine, agriculture, and environmental management. One biotechnology in particular, gene technology, continues to evolve both in capacity and potential to benefit and harm society. The purpose of this article is to offer a policy bridge from unproductive descriptions of gene technology to useful methods for identifying sources of significant biological and socioeconomic risk in complex food systems. Farmers and the public could be voluntarily and involuntarily interacting with new techniques of genome editing and gene silencing in entirely new ways, limiting the usefulness of previous gene technology histories to predict safety. What we believe is a more consistent, verifiable, and practical approach is to identify the critical control points that emerge where the scale effects of a human activity diverge between risk and safety. These critical control points are where technical experts can collaborate with publics with different expertise to identify and manage the technology. The use of technical terminology describing biochemical-level phenomena discourages publics that are not technical experts from contesting the embedded cultural perspectives and uncertainty in “scientific” concepts and prejudice the risk discourse by ignoring other issues of significance to society. From our perspective as gene technologists, we confront the use of pseudo-scale language in risk discourse and propose an escape path from clashes over whether risks that arise spontaneously (from nature) can be perfectly mimicked by gene technology to a discussion on how to best control the risks created by human activity. Scale is conceptually implicit and explicit in gene technology regulation, but there is no agreement about what scales are most useful to managing risk and social expectations. Both differentiated governance (risk-tiered) and responsible research and innovation models could accommodate the critical control points mechanism that we describe.

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Genome Editing and Responsible Innovation, Can They Be Reconciled?

Cited by 30 publications

References 28 publications

Comparison of Gene Editing Versus Conventional Breeding to Introgress the POLLED Allele Into the Tropically Adapted Australian Beef Cattle Population

Comparison of Gene Editing Versus Conventional Breeding to Introgress the POLLED Allele Into the Tropically Adapted Australian Beef Cattle Population

Regulatory issues for genetically modified animals

Differentiated impacts of human interventions on nature

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