Gene Editing’s Extra DNA Problem: Déjà Vu All Over Again

UC Davis researcher Alison Van Eenennaam described the experience of learning that the “poster animals for the gene-editing revolution” do not, after all, comprise the “same outcome [that] could be achieved by breeding in the farmyard,” like she and her collaborators at Recombinetics had been claiming for years, to Antonio Regalado of the MIT Technology Review by saying simply that “We were surprised, but when you get new information, you proceed ahead, that is what science does.”

My reaction back in the early 1990’s to hearing similar news about extra, unintended DNA being inserted into Flavr Savr™ tomatoes, the poster GMOs for the first generation of genetic engineering technology, was somewhat more intense. My boss at Calgene, Inc. at the time, Bill Hiatt, gave me the news as we were traveling on the subterranean moving walkway system that connects the United Airlines terminals at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. I stopped in my tracks (although I kept moving). It just couldn’t be true, I said to myself; the flashing lights and recurrent United theme song intensifying the surrealism I felt at that...