Gene-edited food is coming to Britain
A new law allows the cultivation and sale of gene-edited crops. Good
The tomatoes look like any other. But unlike those which sit on supermarket shelves, they are a source of vitamin d. That is owing to the clever work of scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, who have used gene-editing techniques to boost the tomatoes’ nutritional value. By making small deletions in the plant’s genome they blocked the production of a certain enzyme, prompting the plants to accumulate provitamin d3. This in turn is converted to vitamin d on exposure to ultraviolet light, such as that found in sunlight. A single upgraded tomato could provide around 20% of the recommended daily intake of the vitamin.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Tweak and ye shall find”
Britain May 28th 2022
- Sue Gray produces a patchy account of the Downing Street parties
- Rishi Sunak unveils a new plan to ease Britain’s cost-of-living squeeze
- Britain’s Online Safety Bill could change the face of the internet
- Gene-edited food is coming to Britain
- What John Lewis’s turnaround says about the British high street
- A new history curriculum will not cool the culture wars
- Britain celebrates a jubilee, again
- How the Conservatives became an opposition in government
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