The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their research on the CRISPR / Cas9 technique. The initial discovery of the existence of CRISPR systems was due to the microbiologist Francisco Juan Martínez Mojica from Alicante (Spain). Genome editing technologies derived from CRISPR / Cas9 have great potential to meet the challenges that question Food Security in a world whose population will continue to grow to exceed 10 billion people by the end of this century. Through genomic editing, it is possible to shorten plant improvement processes from a few years to a decade. It is necessary, as claimed by the scientific community, that plants obtained by editing genomes by CRISPR / Cas9, that eliminate unwanted genes or DNA sequences, which in many cases are identical events to those that occur in nature, are not considered transgenic.
This recognition from the Swedish Academy of Sciences represents an opportunity for medicine, agriculture and food. In this sense, the Triptolemos Foundation has prepared the document “Food safety and innovative tools with a focus on a sustainable global food system”.
