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A new chance for genome editing in Europe

Nature Biotechnology volume 41, pages 1378–1380 (2023)Cite this article

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European universities and research institutions helped to pioneer the development of key technologies for the genetic engineering of crops1. Despite its early leading role, Europe has largely resisted the use of modern genetic technologies in agriculture. The combined implementation of an unofficial moratorium on the cultivation and import of transgenic genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (1998–2004) and a strict approval process for transgenic GMOs established by a 2001 European Union (EU) directive2 has severely constrained innovation by both the public and private sectors in the past decades. The hurdle of restrictive GMO regulation created a situation in which many larger corporations and enterprises have relocated their R&D efforts to places and markets more open to technological innovations. At the same time, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public research institutions had little prospect of seeing their GMO research reach the field. This discouraged translational and applied research in this area and also prevented the rigorous testing of scientific hypotheses with field experiments.

The opposition to crop genetic engineering has been mostly fueled by misguided fears of potential toxicity to humans and animals, as well as environmental risks caused by the integration of DNA from other species into crop genomes. Therefore, the emergence of technologies for genome editing3 without the use of exogenous DNA has opened new discussions about crop genetic engineering. Notably, such improved genome-edited crop varieties are often indistinguishable from varieties obtained by classical breeding. The adoption of these editing methods led scientists in Europe to speculate that they might be freed from the strict regulatory framework that transgenic plants were subjected to under Directive 2001/18/EC on the release of GMO plants4. However, the 2018 judgment5 of the European Court of Justice dashed these hopes with a very narrow interpretation of the 2001 Directive, concluding that genome-edited plants, even if they had no exogenous DNA in their genomes, must be subject to the same restrictions as transgenic GMOs. As existing regulations for transgenic GMOs are accompanied by extremely high compliance costs, a similar scenario was feared for new genome-edited plants6,7,8.

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Acknowledgements

P.C. and D.W. are funded by the Max Planck Society. D.M. is supported by the KU Leuven Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crop Biotechnics, Department of Biosystems, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Hervé Vanderschuren & Devang Mehta

  2. KU Leuven Plant Institute (LPI), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Hervé Vanderschuren & Devang Mehta

  3. TERRA Teaching and Research Center, University of Liège, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Gembloux, Belgium

    Hervé Vanderschuren

  4. Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Patience Chatukuta & Detlef Weigel

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  1. Hervé Vanderschuren
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  4. Devang Mehta
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Correspondence to Hervé Vanderschuren, Patience Chatukuta, Detlef Weigel or Devang Mehta.

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Competing interests

D.W. holds equity in Computomics, which advises plant breeders. D.W. also consults for KWS SE, a plant breeder and seed producer with activities throughout the world. All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Vanderschuren, H., Chatukuta, P., Weigel, D. et al. A new chance for genome editing in Europe. Nat Biotechnol 41, 1378–1380 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01969-4

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