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Post by castanea on Feb 24, 2017 21:00:06 GMT -5
Good. "Plant breeders must have free access to biological material in order to be able to breed new crop species. Patent law thus does not apply to conventional plant breeding. This was unanimously confirmed by the European Member States at the Competitiveness Council in Brussels." www.hortibiz.com/item/news/no-patents-on-conventional-plant-breeding/ |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Feb 25, 2017 10:51:17 GMT -5
Hey, that sounds like great news. On the other hand though, i bet that these companies will put more effort into GMO breeding than conventional (not necessarily a good or bad thing in and of itself only in how it is used) if they can't patent them. Though in general patents seem to be heading toward the way of the dodo in general so i think maybe this is just following the natural trend.
I've heard a lot of the new GMO stuff uses this new CRISPR technique which does not introduce transgenic DNA from other organisms, but rather deletes, inactivates, activates, or replaces genes from within the same biogenome. I'm not up and up on it all, but in theory it sounds like a better method to me.
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Post by philagardener on Feb 25, 2017 13:07:40 GMT -5
Because CRISPR generates a targeted DNA change, it can be used in a way that does not necessarily leave behind any foreign DNA (from another organism). As such, the resulting plant may be genetically indistinguishable from a naturally occurring mutant; however, because the mutation can be targeted the process can be directed, is very efficient, and does not require screening fields of wild (or chemically mutagenized) plants to find an intended phenotype. It is a fascinating technology and one you will hear a lot more about in the coming years.
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