Genome editing can end fungi, bacterial attacks in plants, seeds ― Dr Gidado

The Country Coordinator of Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), Dr Rose Gidado, has advocated for the use of genome editing to fight fungi or bacterial infection on crops and seeds.

Fungi and bacterial attacks on crops and seeds have devastating health implications on humans and animals who consume the infected crops or seeds.

Dr Gidado made this comment during a panel discussion on the just concluded Feed Nigeria Summit which was held in Abuja.

She said that fungi or bacteria are high-temperature resistant which cannot be eliminated through boiling the seed; hence the need to deploy technology to tackle it becomes necessary.

She explained that, unlike genetic modification, “with genome editing, you are opening the genome, you identify that gene that is making your crop susceptible to either fungi attack or bacterial attack and knock it out, delete or suppress it and when that is done, the seed is going to be an improved seed that will be resistant that fungi or bacteria.

Furthermore, she said, “the little food we have is already contaminated, infested, so what do we do, I have a proposition on this, from the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), we can use innovative technologies to prevent this mycotoxin infestation.”

“Fungi, once they contaminate your food, no amount of heat can destroy them, they are high temperature resistant, so it is not easy to destroy them, because if you say you want to cook your food to that, you have lost your entire nutrient.

“So it is rather better to prevent, yes, we can mitigate the risk, but let’s not get to that extent, we have emerging technologies, promising technologies that are already working in other parts of the world.

“We have genome editing, we don’t have to bring genes from anywhere, you work within the genome system, open up the genome, it is all based on the understanding of DNA.”

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