Harnessing the Power of CRISPR to Reduce Poverty and Malnutrition – Newswise

Newswise A five-year partnership being launched by the InnovativeGenomicsInstitute (IGI) a non-profit founded by Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna andCGIAR, the worlds largest publicly-funded agricultural research partnership, will harness the power of science to help millions of people overcome poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.

One in four people globally, and rising, are unable to afford a healthydiet.COVID-19 has exacerbated this trend by disrupting food production and distribution, driving upby 20 percentthe number of people threatened by hunger in 2020. The pandemic is unfolding amidst an environmental and climate crisis which is undermining food production andour ability to nourish the world.

According to Barbara Wells, Global Director for Genetic Innovation at CGIAR: World-class science is vital for facilitating farmer adaptation and mitigating our food systems contribution to climate change. Plant-breeding innovations can help ramp up food production while making farms more climate resilient, profitable, and environmentally friendly.

Technologies such asgene editing,which enable scientists tomaketargeted changes to a cropsDNA, can accelerate the development ofmore disease-resistant,water-efficientvarieties that can improve food production and nutrition in areas that are especially vulnerable to climate change,Dr.Wellsexplained.

CGIAR has produced and promoted innovations that are boosting thesustainableproduction of nutritious foodin Africa, Asia and Latin America.Over the past five decades, CGIAR scientists and national partners have developed and disseminatedrobust and highly productive crop varieties and livestock breedstailored to theneedsoflocalmen and women. Those innovationshavehelped hundreds of millions of peopleacross the Global Southovercome hunger and poverty.

TheIGIis a collaboration ofthe University of California, Berkeley andtheUniversity of California, San Francisco with amissiontodeveloprevolutionarygenome-editing tools that enableaffordable and accessible solutions in human health, climate, and agriculture.The IGIs Climate & Sustainable Agriculture program focuses ondeveloping crops that are resistant to pestsanddiseases,resilient toa changing climate, and less dependent onfarmer inputs.Whereas the IGIis a pioneer inappliedgenomic research, CGIAR focuses ontranslatingdiscoveries intoimproved crop varieties and cropping systems.This partnership provides an accelerated pipeline from upstream innovation to real-world impact.

The IGI is testing technologies with great potential to benefit people in the countries where CGIAR is active, such as a way of removing the cyanide found in cassavaa staple upon which nearly a billion people depend and fighting diseases in economically important crops like wheat, rice, and bananas, said Dr. Brian Staskawicz, the IGI Director of Sustainable Agriculture.

The IGI is also pioneering new ways to reduce methane emissions from rice farming, which accounts for 2.5 percent of humanitys contribution to global warming, by using genomic approaches to reduce methane production by soilmicrobes, he added.

By partnering with CGIAR, the IGI can ensure that the products of its research will benefit farmers and consumers in some of the worlds poorest countries, where CGIAR has been working for 50 years and has extensive partner networks, said Dr. Melinda Kliegman, Director of Public Impact at the IGI. Together we can accelerate the development and delivery of more climate-resilient, productive and nutritious crops for resource-poor farmers and consumers.

Over the next five years, the IGI andCGIARwillusethe latest breakthroughs in genomic sciencetoenhancethe resilience and productivity of farmers inlow- and middle-incomecountries andimprove thewellbeing andlivelihoods ofwomen and men insome of the worlds poorestcommunities.

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Harnessing the Power of CRISPR to Reduce Poverty and Malnutrition - Newswise