Future Tech: Using Genetic Editing to Create Terminator Cattle

There are many applications being found for the new gene editing technology CRISPR. In this article I will explore why an Australian geneticist who spends days on the road arguing with critics of Monsanto’s GM soybeans and appears in documentaries, telling the public why genetic modification is safe is working on a project to create 'Terminator Cattle.'

After a year of trying, the lab had just used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to add a gene called SRY to some bovine skin cells. And SRY is no ordinary bit of DNA. All on its own, the presence of SRY can make a female turn out to be essentially male—with bigger muscles, a penis, and testicles (although unable to make sperm).

So essentially they have found a way to terminate the female gene to hit the jackpot everytime in creating male cows with bigger muscles, penises and testicles and missing one thing, the ability to reproduce! Offspring terminated before birth!

“This is not a normal day in the lab,” Van Eenennaam said.

Gene-editing technology is now being used in application with farm animals. Scientists have used this technology to do some interesting things like creating pigs immune to viruses and producing sheep that grow longer wool, they have even made successful efforts to edit dairy cows to eliminate their horns.

Now, in the project she calls “Boys Only,” she aims to create a bull that will father only male offspring: either normal bull calves or ones with two X chromosomes but also the male-making SRY. No females at all.

I'm not completely sure but it sounds like this type of tampering with nature could possibly have some unintended consequences we have yet to explore, couldn't it?

Companies are now lobbying the Trump Administration to kill the rules and declare gene-edited animals unregulated. They've warned the White House the U.S. could fall behind countries like Argentina and Brazil.

If trump goes ahead and kills the rules around gene-editing to make this unregulated, get ready for freak experiments on animals. Is this a slippery slope we are looking at?

Some even expected President Donald J. Trump to announce the change this week during a live address to farmers in Nashville. Instead, Trump offered a more general promise about "streamlining regulations that have blocked cutting-edge biotechnology, setting free our farmers to innovate, thrive, and to grow."

Well, perhaps we are safe for now but this is something to keep on the radar as this topic isn't going to be going away anytime soon!

Because animals turned male by SRY are expected to be sterile, they won’t pass on the genetic change, or any other DNA alterations linked to it. That offers a form of “genetic containment.”

“It’s basically ‘terminator’ technology,” Van Eenennaam says, referring to an idea once floated by agricultural giants to create plants with sterile seeds so farmers couldn't collect and replant them. That was “the line we argued that got it funded.”

Terminator technology refers to creating an organism that produces sterile seeds incapable of procreation. Its the termination of future offspring that we are talking about here!

The original terminator proposal proved controversial. So much so that in 1999 Monsanto pledged never to commercialize sterile GM plants. (Instead, farmers sign contracts agreeing not to save seeds.) Even though it was abandoned, the idea proved notorious enough that GMO critics are still talking about it.

I don't know anyone that goes around saying Monsanto has done a lot of good for our planet. Or Monsanto has made solid strides to improve biodiversity or sustainability in regard to our environmental dilemma.

“I hate to use that term, because activists have always said “Oh my God, Monsanto’s using terminator technology’ and they never did.” says Van Eenennaam. “I want to have a more nuanced discussion around this technology, rather than just the same-old same-old ... That’s just like, ‘Ugh, shoot me.’ We are being blocked from using these technologies because of the discussion around the crops.”
Ersatz males

Because cattle are tagged, branded, corralled, and slaughtered, as well as being slow to reproduce, they’re actually among the least likely organisms to cause a genetic escape. Van Eenennaam’s long-term goal is to make beef production more efficient. Males yield more meat than females and don’t get pregnant or go into heat. She thinks the ersatz males should be about 15 percent more efficient at turning grass and grain into muscle than females.

This reminds me of the movie Jurassic Park where Dr. Ian Malcolm explains how chaos theory works. You see because blah blah blah, that could never happen! But it will, it always does, we are certainly a naive race at times aren't we?

Creating terminator bulls may be a good idea after all considering artificial insemination is used in only about 4 percent of beef cattle. This is because apparently, it takes a lot of effort in roving the range, gathering cows, and getting them pregnant.

Van Eenennaam's success depends upon her ability to produce male-only bulls which would prove to be a far less expensive way to solve this problem of procreation in bovine!

“A bull is a lot better at doing it than we are,” she says. “And he enjoys it a lot more.”

Well that is certainly an assumption there!

What do you guys think about all this bull business? Are you impressed with how far gene editing techniques have come? Should we be creating terminator cows in the first place?

Please leave your thoughts and feedback below!

Thanks for reading @techblogger!

Source:

Meet the Woman Using CRISPR to Breed All-Male “Terminator Cattle” - Technology Review

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