CRISPR Crops Are Here

Had it been coined intentionally for the purpose of marketing fresh produce, the acronym CRISPR would have been a stroke of advertising genius. After all, who wouldn’t want their salad to be crisper But the true genius of this gene-editing technology could be its ability to jump straight to consumer shelves, sidestepping all the controversies that have tripped up its cousin GMO, with which it shares its biotechnological roots.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) allow researchers to genetically control organisms on a molecular basis — from bacteria and viruses to plants, insects, and larger animals up to and including humans. First described in 1987 by Yoshizumi Ishino at Osaka University, the technology seems wondrously applicable as a tool to help solve many of modern life’s problems — from human diseases to global warming. It has fueled new approaches for treating rare genetic diseases and common ailments like cancer, mostly without controversy.

So far, CRISPR crops have also avoided the societal stigma and outright legal bans that genetically modified organism (GMO) crops have faced, especially in Europe. But the true test of how the public will react is yet to come, as more and more CRISPR crops become consumer-ready.

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