First genetically engineered coral created to help save reefs from climate change

New technique holds promise for understanding genes that protect corals from rising temperatures

Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent 

The Independent Online

Genetically engineered coral has been created by a team at America’s prestigious Stanford University, in a project they hope will serve as a “blueprint” for future coral conservation.

For the first time, researchers were able to apply a unique tool called CRISPR-Cas9 to edit coral genes. 

In the future they hope to identify genes involved in coral survival, especially those that help them tolerate the rising temperatures that have led to catastrophic reef “die-offs”.

While scientists have emphasised that genetically enhanced “super-corals” are still a long way from becoming reality, this work is still thought to hold great promise for coral protection.

“We hope that future experiments using CRISPR-Cas9 will help us develop a better understanding of basic coral biology that we then can apply to predict – and perhaps ameliorate – what’s going to happen in the future due to a changing climate,” explained Dr Phillip Cleve, a geneticist and the lead author of the new study.

CRISPR-Cas9 has become the biologist’s go-to gene-editing tool in recent years, but it has proved difficult to apply it to corals due to the way they reproduce.

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