Check out the "second generation" genetic engineering tools.
"Talens" and "CRISPR" techniques are easier to use, faster and much cheaper than the old Agrobacterium-plasmid genengineering tools. They precisely insert or edit DNA, unlike the old "slam in some entire gene complex any old place and see what happens".
Allegedly, the new precise tools will be safer since they allow smaller change and encourage editing genes to match (for example) wild varieties of the SAME crop species, not transgenic DNA from bacteria. (I sound like an advertisement.)
CRISPR stands for:
clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats
I think that "Cas" stands for CRISPR-Associated protein Systems .
I found a company advertising "GE toolkits" for a few hundred dollars, and there are whole CRISPR
libraries of plant DNA sequences already thoughtfully made available by the university that developed the tool.
http://www.genecopoeia.com/abo...
kits & reagents for do-it-yourself GE
"Precise Genome Editing Tools"
http://www.genecopoeia.com/pro...
Genome-CRISP™ CRISPR-Cas9 products and services
Fast CRISPR-Cas9 sgRNA design and cloning services. Validation and other related services also available for simple and fast targeted genomic editing.
Toolkits are only $599 ... or "$295 when purchased together with a sgRNA clone."
I'm not making this up! Hit the link below, then "To Order".
http://www.genecopoeia.com/pro...
Oh, well, the time and expense in developing GMO crops have always come from the regulatory process that mandates field tests and toxicity studies before releasing GE / GMO crops. Aside from this "hobbyist loophole" I had never heard of, those barriers still exist. I saw a list of HUNDREDS of licenses-to-test things like rice, wheat and potatoes that never made it to commercial release. I wonder whether they failed the field trials (and why?) or just did not have the profit potential of corn & soybeans and sugar beets.
One last thing to sleep on: the
CRISPR GE tools work as well on humans as on plants.
Unlike the old Agrobacterium-plasmid GE tools. They are already working on things like sickle-cell anemia and (I think) cystic fibrosis.
The human-gene-editing toolkit is 30% off today! (Should I add it to the Coupon Forum? )
http://www.genecopoeia.com/pro...
"Sure, the future is like having a hive of bees live in your head. But there it is!"
