Ep 351 - Let’s Talk GMOs with a GMO Scientist

Guest - Dr Larry Gilbertson

 

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, otherwise known as CRISPR. It's a word many people know is associated with genetic engineering – the genetic engineering of food. But what most of us don't know is, what exactly is genetic engineering?

 

The science of adjusting the genetic makeup of plants has been in process for thousands of years. From the time humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers, we've been tinkering with food. This plant has those characteristics and if we wed them to this one, will it grow better in this environment? Will it taste better? Will it be drought resistant? Will it be disease tolerant? And so on. 

 

By the middle of the last century, scientists were rapidly moving toward sequencing the genomes of everything, including people. Genetics now play a vitally important role in innovations in medicine, trees, food, and so on. And somewhere along the way, genetics and food got a bad rap, so much so that many people are openly campaigning against bioengineering of plants. 

 

Stuart McNish wanted to ask someone who actually does this type of work, what they do, why they do it, and can we trust them and the foods they produce.  He invited Larry Gilbertson of Bayer Crop Sciences to join him for a Conversation That Matters  about innovations in plant biotechnology. 

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