Written by Tom Allen-Stevens
Peers in the House of Lords have called on the government to revisit regulation on gene-editing (GE). Tom Allen-Stevens reports. A motion debated on Thursday (30 Jan) recognised recent developments in this field and its status in scientific research, and could pave the way to government diverging from EU law which treats gene-edited crops as GMOs. While much of the debate concerned interventions in the field of medicine, Viscount Matt Ridley said it was “vital” the government signals its encouragement of genome editing in agriculture. “There is no clearer case of a technology in which we could and should take the lead but in which we are and will be held back if we do not break free from the EU approach,” he said. He took the example of the blight-resistant potatoes, currently being developed by The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich. TSL has been developing GM lines which have now been commercialised in the US by Idaho-based plant sciences company JR Simplot. Here in the UK, the first year of field trials have just been undertaken by TSL and NIAB of blight-resistant Maris Piper potatoes. The altered lines of the UK’s top-selling variety also have genes switched off to reduce…
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