A study conducted by researchers from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology showed that the genes that make patients experience severe COVID-19 symptoms are inherited from Neandertals who lived 60,000 years ago. The findings are published in bioRxiv.
The United States is the top biotech-crop growing country in the world, having commercialized biotech crops in 1996. The adoption of stacked varieties in the U.S. has accelerated in recent years. Approximately 89% of the cotton area and 80% of corn were planted with stacked seeds in 2019. This is according to the Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. published by the Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS).
Private investors in Africa have been challenged to support the establishment of genome editing start-ups on the continent. This comes as it emerged that Africa, Asia, and Latin America have untapped entrepreneurship opportunities in genome editing.
Osaka University and partners reported targeted genome editing in potato using transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs). The results are published in Plant Biotechnology journal.
