Yianni Lagos, chief executive officer of Soilcea, told the Florida Citrus Commission (FCC) in October about his company’s efforts to use CRISPR gene editing to aid the citrus industry in its struggles with canker and HLB. Soilcea was founded to find solutions to these citrus diseases. The company has exclusive licenses to patents from the University of Florida to cure these deadly pathogens using CRISPR precision breeding.
Lagos said CRISPR precision breeding technology does not add any foreign material to the citrus tree. Instead, it removes the susceptibility genes to turn off the plant’s pathogen interaction to create resistance to citrus canker and HLB. Lagos stated that CRISPR-edited citrus trees can be disease resistant, higher yielding and less reliant on pesticides. More importantly, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these trees are considered non-GMO. GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency has begun the exemption process for this form of CRISPR breeding.
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