Prof Sang’s colleagues at Roslin developed a strain of pig that is resistant to the PRRS pig disease six years ago.
They can’t yet be commercially sold to UK pig farmers – but Genus, a British company that has commercialised the PRRS-resistant pigs, has received regulatory approval for their use in Colombia.
The firm also has an application for permission to introduce the pigs to the US market which, if given the green light, could be approved as early as next spring. Genus is also planning to seek approval for the commercial use of their gene-edited pigs in Canada, Mexico and Japan.
Despite the strong opinions on both sides, there appears to be scope for consensus around some applications of the technology.
For instance, Mr Stevenson of CIWF does think it’s at least possible that gene editing could be applied in an ethical way.
To do so, he says, it would need to meet three criteria: that any change it brings about is unlikely to cause animal welfare problems; that its objectives cannot be met by any less intensive means; and that it will not have the effect of entrenching industrialised livestock production.
The PRRS-resistant pigs may tick all three boxes in specific circumstances, according to Mr Stevenson, as do efforts to use gene editing to enable the egg-production industry to produce female-only chicks to avoid the need for billions of male chicks being killed each year when they are just a day old.
Likewise, Prof Mizeck Chagunda, who is the director of the Centre for Tropical Genetics and Health, which is also based at the Roslin Institute, believes both in the positive potential of gene editing and that it needs to be carefully overseen.
He says the technology could improve the lives of the poorest farmers in the world: “70% to 80% of farmers are smallholding farms with two to three animals.” A devastating disease can leave a farmer and their family with nothing.
“So, giving them animals that have been prepared with these technologies would help to protect them from this huge risk to their livelihoods,” says Prof Chagunda.
However, Prof Chagunda warns that there needs to be good, strong regulations in place if this technology is to be accepted by the public.
“Some changes can be too experimental, and we should not be doing them,” he says.
“Scientists should be working with the regulatory authorities to achieve the good products that the farmers and consumers are looking for. We should be doing science that is ethical and at the same time helping humanity.”
The gene editing work at Roslin is led by its director, Prof Bruce Whitelaw, who was a scientist at the institute when Dolly the sheep was cloned. In the past he has been through the process of explaining the potential benefits of seemingly alarming technological developments and he believes there is an urgent need to do so again now.
“We are world leaders in the technology and sitting at top table in terms of developing it,” he says. “If we don’t have the legislation to do that, then our credentials to sit there will slowly wither away and we will lose investment, scientific talent and the boost to our economy to other countries.”
