THE HISTORY OF GE
The question of whether we should allow genetic engineering in New Zealand has been raging for almost as long as the technology has been around – since the 1970s.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the sentiment among the public was decidedly anti-GMO, with protest a regular feature of the political landscape, including famous hīkoi that travelled from Northland to Wellington.
Now the topic is in the headlines again after the Productivity Commission recommended in its 2021 report that New Zealand’s strict laws regulating genetic engineering ought to be reviewed, in part because the techniques used have evolved.
GM, GMO, GE, GEd – what exactly does it all mean?
• New Zealand law defines a as any organism in which any of the genes or other genetic material have been modified by, inherited or otherwise derived through any number of replications, by in vitro techniques.• is the use of in vitro techniques to make genetically modified organisms.• is used interchangeably with the term by experts in the field.• techniques, what we traditionally think of as genetic engineering, use a foreign “gene of interest” that has been cultured techniques, such as CRISPR-Cas9, TALENs and ZFNs.• techniques have been around since the late 70s, but some tools (nucleases) like CRISPR-Cas9, TALENs and ZFNs are new.
