[Washington State University used CRISPR technology to produce
pigs that were sold in sausage form. Is this a one-off, or a sign of
things to come? ]
[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

GENETICALLY EDITED PORK HAS ENTERED THE FOOD SUPPLY  
[[link removed]]


 

Jesse Hirsch
May 18, 2023
Ambrook Research Newsletter
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Washington State University used CRISPR technology to produce pigs
that were sold in sausage form. Is this a one-off, or a sign of things
to come? _

Linkage maps for three pig chromosomes from ResearchGate., Graphic by
Ali Aas

 

This month, the Washington State University Meat Judging Team — a
student group that attends competitions for evaluating cuts of beef,
pork, and lamb — hosted a novel fundraiser. They sold grilled,
German-style sausages to drum up travel funds for future events. But
these sausages have a twist: They’re the first genetically edited
pork that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed to enter
the U.S. food supply.

Tinkering with animal genes has generated no shortage of funky
headlines in recent years. Did you hear about the goats implanted with
spider genes? Glow-in-the-dark cats? Or how about the genetically
edited pigs that grew kidneys for human organ transplants?

The pace of these advances has been a bit dizzying, so you’re
forgiven if you thought gene-edited meat was already on supermarket
shelves. But these sausages, the product of two years of work from a
team of WSU researchers, are a significant first. They come from five
male pigs that were sterilized, then implanted with stem cells to
produce sperm with desirable traits they can pass on to their progeny.
The research team refers to this as the creation of “surrogate
sires.”

The researchers used CRISPR, a much-hyped technology that’s been
referred to as “molecular scissors,” wherein very specific DNA can
be deleted and replaced with desirable traits from animals in the same
species. Some liken gene editing to the more traditional process of
selective breeding, with the advantage of greater precision and much
quicker results. Others say it’s essentially genetic modification
— with all its attendant fears and baggage.

Jon Oatley, professor of molecular biosciences at WSU and leader of
this research project, is in the former camp. He argues CRISPR is only
used to advance traits that would arise in nature anyway. Oatley
believes this is distinct from “transgenic modification” — the
process many associate with typical GMOs — which inserts genes from
one species into another. “Typically, livestock producers would be
screening millions of animals for changes in DNA that confer a certain
trait or characteristic — it can take millions of dollars and
decades to accomplish,” he said. “And once they find a rare
individual in a population, they just use [artificially] selective
breeding to propagate it. We don’t have to do all that with
CRISPR.”

Meanwhile Kevin Wells, an associate professor in University of
Missouri’s Animal Sciences Research Center, has been genetically
engineering livestock for decades. Wells considers CRISPR, which he
has utilized in research projects himself, in no way meaningfully
distinct from other types of genetic modification. There is “an
artificial parsing of language such that genetic engineering using one
technique is claimed to be appreciably different from genetic
engineering through the use of another technique,” he said in an
email.

Either way you look at it, the FDA places enormous regulatory burdens
on any food product that bears a whiff of genetic alteration. It
should be noted that only the five pigs in the WSU study are allowed
to be sold and eaten — this very specific allowance was considered
“investigational,” meaning it was provisionally permitted for
research purposes. And even these allowances were not easy to obtain;
Oatley said WSU paid $200,000 to obtain limited FDA approval, and this
was a discounted academic rate.

Alison Van Eenennaam, extension specialist in animal biotechnology and
genomics at UC Davis, isn’t hopeful that genetically engineered meat
will be sold anytime soon in the U.S. She blames an outdated
regulatory structure that doesn’t account for the rapid scientific
advances made in recent years. “We need a different language because
when the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was written, what, 40 years
before the discovery of DNA, they were not envisioning genome-edited
animals,” Van Eenennaam said. “To me, the only thing that’s
going to change this is that Congress has to go and say, ‘This is
stupid’ … and they have a few other things on their plates right
now.”

    “When the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was written, 40 years
before the discovery of DNA, they were not envisioning genome-edited
animals.”

Oatley shares her concerns, though perhaps is a bit more optimistic.
Though the five pigs in his research project were edited for
particular reproductive-related traits, he envisions any number of
CRISPR uses with food animals — he hopes these sausages are just the
beginning. “At Washington State University, we’re trying to use
biotechnology like CRISPR to impact food animal production in a
variety of ways, whether it’s their resiliency or their welfare, or
growth efficiency.”

In a sense, this recent project was a test balloon, a way of showing
the public — and regulators — that gene-edited meat is safe, to
open the door for future projects. Pigs could be bred to avoid
respiratory disease, cattle bred without horns, chicken eggs bred to
avoid massive culling. “On the most basic level, there should be no
concern about consuming a gene-edited animal,” said Brad Ringeisen,
director of the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley. “We
have been modifying the genomes of livestock for millennia to make
them tastier, healthier, or more productive.”

That said, there is still a significant way to go in convincing a
still-skeptical populace that any kind of genetic modification is safe
or desirable. For instance, GM salmon is something of an outlier,
gaining approval from FDA but still facing significant battles in the
court of public opinion. Though those salmon were transgenically
modified as opposed to gene-edited, the distinction may be lost on the
average consumer.

“As important as it is to understand the basics of what CRISPR can
do, it’s just as important that consumers and farmers see the value
in it,” said Ringeisen. “If it’s just used to increase the
profits for a large corporation, there will probably be pushback. If
it helps farmers adapt to a changing climate, improves animal welfare,
or helps put the food that people want on the table more cheaply and
sustainably, then it will be a lot easier to help people understand
the value.”

Broad ethical implications aside — how were the gene-edited
sausages? At the fundraising barbecue for WSU’s Meat Judging team,
meat scientist Blake Foraker manned the grill. “We smoked these
during the cooking process, so that’s where you see the nice
mahogany brown,” Foraker told Oregon Public Broadcasting. And,
according to the OPB reporter, the finished product was “smoky, and
mildly salty. A good snap to the casings. Just like regular pork.”

Jesse Hirsch

Jesse Hirsch is editor of Ambrook Research. He has spent years working
as a journalist focused on food and agriculture, most recently as
managing editor at The Counter. His work has appeared in The New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Bon
Appétit, Eater, and many other outlets.

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]