Global Regulatory Outlook for Crisprized Plants

Global Regulatory Outlook of CRISPRized Plants summarizes CRISPR/Cas systems and applications for precise editing of plant genomes and discusses the global regulatory framework for CRISPR edited crops. While CRISPR technology has become a routine, cheap and an efficient method to generate edited crops with superior traits, how these crops will be regulated, will determine the future of this technology. Understanding the current state of regulation, the concerns, issues and foundations for decisions will be key in determining how this technology is used going forward.

A major challenge to the world community in the future will be keeping food and energy production in pace with the increasing world population and changing climate. To meet the 21st century population demands, world needs to grow crop varieties with high yield, drought, tolerance to heat and salt, and with better nutrition values and shelf life. Applications of CRISPR/Cas system toward both basic and applied problems in plant biology have become routine to address problems associated with plants. CRISPR/Cas is overcoming barriers and has potential to fulfill the early promises of genetic engineering such as plants with higher yield, better biotic and abiotic resistance and more nutritious food. It is likely that CRISPR technologies will continue to evolve and CRISPR crops will play a major role in future food security of the world.

CRISPR/Cas technology has been extensively demonstrated for efficient and precise genome editing of model and crop plants for a broad range of applications. In addition, DNA free editing with CRISPR/Cas has made possible to produce plants which are indistinguishable from plants produced with conventional breeding. Although CRISPR holds a tremendous potential rewrite genomic landscape of crop genome, off-targets and efficient delivery of CRISPR reagents are major challenges in translational applications. Further commercialization of CRISPR crops bypassing regulatory frameworks for GMOs in some countries have started a global debate about regulate however still debate persist how to regulate these crops.

Global Regulatory Outlook of CRISPRized Plants highlights regulatory classification of CRISPR modifications such as SDN1, SDN2 and SDN3 and their global regulation. and discusses the social, ethical, governance, and policy issues related to CRISPR edited crops. This important summary will be vital to the successful commercialization of CRISPR technology and biosafety concerns associated with this technology.