Gijs van Rooijen is the chief scientific officer of Genome Alberta. CRISPR 58 www.seed.ab.ca | Advancing Seed in Alberta THERE ARE PLENTY of buzzwords surrounding the seed industry in 2018 — GMOs, gene-editing, organic and, of course, CRISPR. While we know a lot surrounding the debate of GMOs versus organic and whether or not GMOs and gene-editing overlap, one gene-editing technology still seems a mystery. So, what exactly is CRISPR-Cas9, and why does it matter to the seed industry? CRISPR is a genome editing system that could benefit the seed industry by allowing breeders to make minor changes into the genomes of existing high performance cultivars that will result in enhanced yield, ability to withstand stresses such as drought, heat and diseases and give crops the nutritional qualities that consumers are looking for. “From an academic perspective, I like to think of plants as machines,” says Nat Graham, a postdoctoral associate from the Voytas lab at the University of Minnesota. “Everything runs on a code — DNA. What we’re focused on from a genome engineering perspective is how can we manipulate DNA for our gain?” “With traditional transgenics, you would take a genetic sequence and randomly insert it into the DNA, which can disrupt the sequence,” Graham explains. “If it disrupts, you just keep trying again until it doesn’t cause a problem. If you want to turn a sequence off, you’d need to use mutagenesis. CRISPR-Cas9 is a new tool for genome engineering, and it allows breeders to go through the genome, find a sequence and precisely alter it.” Graham continues by explaining that currently, CRISPR is used to “turn off,” sequences through mutation. His current research focuses on how to insert new sequences by using CRISPR-Cas9, but he emphasizes that most products that come from CRISPR currently turn off mutations. CRISPR-Cas9 is a protein found in bacteria that were under attack from bacteriophages. It can recognize sequences of invaders and cut the DNA sequences apart. Researchers discovered that the proteins could be programmed to recognize a new sequence and introduce mutations site-specifically into the DNA sequence. There are a few different ways that CRISPR works to “turn-off,” sequences. CRISPR-Cas9 is revolutionizing the way we create novel crops, but why should growers care? Revolutionizing with CRISPR