In promising news for dairy farmers, researchers have bred what are likely the first offspring from a genome-edited bull. The calves were born without horns, a trait that occurs naturally in cattle but that was given to their father through previous DNA-editing research.
The offspring were otherwise normal and healthy, the authors reported Monday in Nature Biotechnology. It proves that the trait can be safely inserted into cattle and bred, says study co-author Alison Van Eenennaam of the University of California, Davis. The findings also argue for a loosening of some FDA guidelines on gene-edited animals, she says.
Since horned cattle are more aggressive, farmers often burn off the horn-producing cells when the calves are young. “That’s not pleasant for the calf or producer, and they would like to not have to do that,” Van Eenennaam says. But naturally horn-free bulls generally have less desirable offspring — so there’s interest ...
