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Can technology overcome the adverse effects of climate change?
Researchers around the world are already studying how to reduce heat or cold waves, rising sea levels or the extinction of animal and plant species as a result of climate change.
The 6th Agro-Food Research Workshop of the School of Agronomists of the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT) has treated in its second session the modular cloning tools that exist to edit the genome in the plants and that can help to avoid the disappearance of Species as a result of climate change.
CSIC scientist Diego Orzaez, who also runs the plant biotechnology group at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP) at the University of Valencia, has addressed in a conference how technology facilitates making transgenic plants.
For this he has exposed the existence of the Casper Cris 9, a new technology that allows cutting and gluing DNA pieces of a much more precise nature so that safer generic changes can be made.
As he explained, this type of technology is not only used in the agronomic field, but is also being used in medicine, to treat diseases or other living organisms.
"They are technologies of genetic editing, that allow to modify a message or a text at the moment or in the exact place, is to be able to change in the point that you want," he added.
In this sense, he commented that editing the genome of plants is used to 'improve' them and adapt them to new situations such as climate change, in addition to making them 'healthier or disease resistant'.
'We use it for varieties that, for example, we can not grow or that the farmer can not grow because they are not resistant to diseases or does not produce them, to improve them to improve nutritional content and make them more resistant to The drought, "he said.
This technology appeared four years ago, but has been used in plants for two years.
The researcher warns that "it is still early" to expect results, but says that "there are many applications in the test tubes to be able to improve the plants and to survive with less water."
The evolution of their use will depend on whether the resulting plants are considered transgenic or not.
Orzaez points out that there is now a debate at European level on this issue, 'if they let us use them we can get results quickly'.
Source: UPCT
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