As the world’s foremost experts unite in their efforts to combat food insecurity and malnutrition, both exacerbated by climate change and responsible for stunting over 30% of children under the age of five, a group of new scientists emerged in October, equipped to enhance crop production through the art of gene editing.
The ten doctoral-level scientists from six different African nations, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, and Nigeria, have undergone an intensive six-week training program hosted by the African Plant Breeding Academy (APBA) to refine their skills in advanced crop breeding. The training focused on Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), which enables precise, targeted alterations to DNA sequences in living organisms, particularly crops.