5/29/2023: ‘Blue tomatoes. Red blueberries: Coming to a store near you?’ (BBC America)

Senji Thomas, a post-doc researcher at MIT, believes it’s not enough to think about ‘unlocking the genome’. Her newly published paper explores using computational models to predict compatibility between genes from different species. While that might sound overly technical, what it means in practice is that someday in the future, it might not take thousands of hours and millions of dollars to create new hybrid foods. Currently, scientists at agricultural companies can only guess which genes from 1 species can work in another.

“We’re used to thinking about the genome as a puzzle. What gene causes what traits? Well, we’ve solved that puzzle. The next step is combining multiple puzzles, multiple genomes, to make something new,” said Dr. Thomas. “Right now, the way scientists create hybrid plants is essentially by smashing together the puzzle pieces and seeing what works. Even targeted gene insertions can make the host plant non-viable. Our model proves that we can guess the viability of altered food crops before we even put the seed in the ground.”

Thomas’ work, though not without its detractors, may prove invaluable as the USA seeks to improve its food security amid climate change. Her work was funded by the US Department of Agriculture.