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The long wait is over.  The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has reached the unambiguous conclusion that organisms made by any mutagenesis method are GMOs under the European GMO regulations.[1] In the decision released yesterday, the Court stated that a small subset of mutagenesis techniques “which have been…

Imagine a future where agriculture depends not just on crops and livestock, but artificial intelligence, mobile apps, microbes and good old-fashioned teamwork. That’s the scenario envisioned by a committee of scientists, who last summer were recruited by the National Academy of Sciences to answer one question: What key advances over…

Researchers in the UK have developed the first ‘switchable’ gene drive system, potentially addressing fears that the use of gene drives to control malaria or eliminate invasive species might run out of control and have devastating unintended consequences. Gene drives work by overriding the usual Mendelian laws of genetic inheritance,…

Can you imagine the entire population of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom and France going hungry? You don’t need to imagine. That is exactly what happens every day when an estimated 815 million people around the globe go hungry. In the short term, the problem…

Scientists at Rothamsted Research have sown one of the world’s first experimental field trials of a genome edited crop in an effort to develop more nutritious plants that can be sustainably grown. The trial — the first to be conducted on genome edited (GE) plants in the United Kingdom…

Some 60 farmers representing 17 nations will gather May 21-25 in Rock Island, Ill., to hone skills that will amplify their voices in the global debate around agricultural biotechnology. This is the second year that the Cornell Alliance for Science is leading the popular international program, which offers…

A few weeks ago, like thousands of other scientists around the globe have done before, I stood up in front of a public audience and “defended” my PhD thesis to a jury of senior scientists. The PhD defense is probably the single-most significant milestone in a career in science. It’s…

Author Mark Lynas, a one-time anti-GMO activist turned biotech advocate, is featured in an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio. The 42-minute program starts with a segment on how Wisconsin organic farmers are losing faith in the USDA organic label. Some are disgruntled by the inclusion of hydroponic operations in…

Though anti-GMO activists have long pushed labeling as a way to stigmatize genetically modified foods, America’s draft proposal for labeling such products deftly diffuses that effort with new language and friendly-looking symbols. Two commonly used terms — genetically engineered and genetically modified — would be abandoned in favor of the…