Genome Editing Technology Develops New Disease-resistance Wheat Seeds

Chinese scientists have recently developed new wheat seeds that have the ability to resist wheat powdery mildew, a common disease that largely reduces the quality and quantity of wheat production.

Researchers say that the advanced genome editing technique enables researchers to find target breeding more accurately and quickly, which is different from traditional methods such as induced mutation and hybridization.

Gao Caixia is a senior researcher of Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology under Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Previously, breeding of a new variety was like looking for a needle in the ocean. You had to make a lot of mutants and then try to find the one you may need. Now you don't need to do that anymore. You can just target at the genome you need directly and you can get the characters that you want."

Research results about the new breeding method have been published on the online version of Britain-based scientific magazine Nature Biotechnology.