A recent report published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has provided a global overview of new genomic techniques (NGTs) being applied to food-producing animals and their products, from NGTs already approved for commercialization in the agrifood sector to those still in the research and development phase.
In the report, NGTs are defined as “techniques that are able to alter the genetic material of an organism, developed after the publication of EU Directive 2001/18/EC [on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment].” Specific NGTs include site-directed nuclease (SDN) techniques based on clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN), zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN), oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis (ODM), base editing, prime editing, RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM), CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), and RNA editing.