FDA Approves Gene-Hacked CRISPR Pigs for Human Consumption

Image by Getty / Futurism Genetics The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a type of CRISPR gene-edited pig for human consumption. As MIT Technology Review reports, only an extremely limited list of gene-modified animals are cleared by regulators to be eaten in the United States, including a transgenic salmon that has an extra gene to grow faster, and heat-tolerant beef cattle. And now a type of illness-resistant pig could soon join their ranks. British company Genus used the popular gene-editing technique CRISPR to make pigs immune to a virus that causes an illness called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS). It's the same technology that's been used to gene-hack human babies — experiments that have proven far more controversial — and develop medicine in the form of gene therapies. The PRRS virus can easily spread in factory farms in the US and cause the inability to conceive, increase the number of stillborn pigs, and trigger respiratory complications, i ... Read full article.