Scientists create gene-edited animals as 'surrogate sires' to boost food production

A gene-edited surrogate bull is seen at the campus of Washington State University, in Pullman, US, Aug 7, 2020. LONDON: Scientists have created gene-edited pigs, goats and cattle to produce sperm with traits such as disease resistance and higher meat quality in what they say is a step towards genetically enhancing livestock to improve food production.

"With this technology, we can get better dissemination of desirable traits and improve the efficiency of food production," said Jon Oatley, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University in the United States, who co-led the work. Jon Oatley, director of WSU's Center for Reproductive Biology, feeds a surrogate goat at the campus of Washington State University, in Pullman, on Aug 7, 2020. Yet gene-editing has long been a contentious subject, and the latest advance could face resistance from critics opposed to the genetic modification of animals, which they regard as dangerous tampering with nature.

This research was a"proof of concept", they said, and showed that the technique could work. Current regulations, however, mean that gene-edited surrogate sires could not be used in the food chain anywhere in the world, even though their offspring would not be gene-edited, the researchers added.

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