Page 34 - Breeding Edge ebook

“We’re very excited by the potential for gene editing, and not only against PRRS … a devastating
disease to the industry,” said veterinarian Dan Kovich, speaking for the National Pork Producers
Council. “In the future,” he said, “looking to other applications for disease resistance, prevention,
management – all sorts of traits -- I think the potential is there (for gene editing) traits that can have an
impact on animal welfare, reducing the need for antibiotics . . .”

“This is very different from the GMOs (genetically modified
organisms) that people have talked about in the past,” Kovich

says, noting that in gene editing, no genes from foreign species are
introduced. “I think there are very sound reasons why the marketplace

will be accepting of this technology. This is a very precise technology,
working within the genome of the pig. It’s not transgenics.” So, he
says, NPPC is “just really excited about where this can go.”

Swine-related gene editing discoveries are a small part in the leading

edge of genetics research. Even though the new genetic altering

Alison Van Eenennaam, a procedures such as CRISPR (Clustered, Regularly Interspaced, Short
Cooperative Extension Specialist Palindromic Repeats) and TALEN (Transcription Activator-Like
in Animal Genomics and
Biotechnology at the University of Effector Nucleases) are just a few years old, scientists have already
California - Davis invented some more refined versions of even those techniques – for
example, modifying the performance of specific genes without

actually cutting or removing any genes in the nucleus, as CRISPR and TALEN do.

Scientists around the globe are giving the genetic manipulations test drives: cutting, splicing,
deleting and amplifying genes within the cells of everything from viruses and fungi up the
biological scale to mammals and the human body.

One significant feature of all the gene editing work is that most of it is taking place not in the cell nuclei
of higher life forms, but of the lowest.

Megan Hochstrasser, science communications manager for the
Innovative Genomics Institute at UC-Davis, keeps a roster of new
research postings of gene-editing products developed with CRISPR-
Cas9, the most frequently used new gene-editing system.

“It seems that the microbes section is growing the most rapidly,” she
said. So far, 88 of 208 posted CRISPR successes are about
microorganisms: fungi, bacteria, and protists (molds, algae, etc.).
Another 46 are on invertebrates (insects, snails, worms, etc.), 39 alter
crops and other plants, and 10 are on fish.

Thus, only a handful of successful genome editing advances– just Megan Hochstrasser, science
9 percent in Hochstrasser’s count – directly alter the biological communications manager for the
makeup of mammals or birds. But such genome amendments Innovative Genomics Institute at
could also be significant to human health. the UC-Davis

Two years ago, an immunologist in London, for example, was able
to extract immunity cells, called T-cells, from the blood of a donor,
modify them with a TALEN gene-editing procedure so the body of a

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