..Then, in less than 50 years, (click here) the trees were gone. An exotic blight, accidentally carried over on an Asian chestnut variety, began infecting American chestnuts as the 20th century dawned. By 1950, up to four billion trees had died, two million of them in Ontario, wiping out 99.9 per cent of the species and radically reshaping the forests it once dominated.
Now, a century later, an American research team has an equally unprecedented solution: a genetically modified American chestnut. By splicing a single gene from wheat into the tree’s genome, scientists from the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) have engineered blight-resistant saplings.
This year, the team plans to apply for approval from U.S. and Canadian regulators to distribute the plant. If they are successful, the tree would be the first genetically modified organism released with the goal of reintroducing an endangered species to the wild, rather than producing a commercial agricultural crop.
The SUNY-ESF team, led by William Powell, a professor and director of the American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project, expects the regulatory review to take between two and four years. But because no one has ever done this before, there could be unexpected hurdles or accelerants — including the response of the public.
“I think many of the values and perceptions of people about genetically modified organisms are based around issues of commercial interest,” like profits and patents, says Sally Aitken, a professor who studies forest and conservation genetics at the University of British Columbia, who is not involved in the research.
“The case of the chestnut and chestnut blight really makes us reconsider some of the concerns, perhaps, but it also raises additional concerns about working with genetic manipulations of native wild species.”...
