Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science's (IBS) Center for Genome Engineering in South Korea have created a way to genetically modify plants using CRISPR-Cas9 without the addition of DNA. Their work has been published in Nature Biotechnology.
Because no DNA is used in this process, the resulting genome-edited plants could be exempt from current regulations governing genetically modified organisms (GMO) and given a warmer reception by the public. What makes this work different is that these genetic modifications look just like genetic variations resulting from the selective breeding that farmers have been doing for millennia.
