CRISPR futures: Rethinking the politics of genome editing

Abstract

New genome editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 aspire to automate and standardize laboratory practices of genetic engineering at the molecular scale. They have been promoted as a ‘revolutionary’ means of production, which will revitalize industry, transform agribusiness and adapt it to changing climatic conditions. To realize this vision, a fundamental regulatory shift is now being enacted by multiple national governments around the world from Argentina to Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and the European Union. As corporate science is directly in the service of private entities guided by a strict market rationality, while public research is increasingly pushed to prioritize immediate ‘industrial applications’ and the achievement of measurable ‘socio-economic impact’, genomic interventions are mostly geared towards expanding, accelerating and securing the accumulation of capital on a global scale. Structural market demands are embodied in gene-edited bodies produced for commercialization. While the emerging international regulatory regime for gene-edited organisms has been largely shaped by discussions focused on technical questions of health and safety, this tendency indicates the necessity of a wider democratic debate that would include the socio-economic, ethical and ecological concerns recently stressed by indigenous and peasant movements around the world. How will these new GM bodies transform the way people live and work in agricultural lands, industrial facilities, barnyards and slaughterhouses, in biotech labs and medical clinics? How will they affect lived ecologies? What types of multi-species worlds are being constructed through bioengineering practices, by whom and according to what political visions?

New genome editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 aspire to automate and standardize laboratory practices of genetic engineering at the molecular scale. They have been promoted as a ‘revolutionary’ means of production, which will revitalize industry, transform agribusiness and adapt it to changing climatic conditions. One of the developers of CRISPR, for instance, has been prominent in marketing the molecular tool as a form of ‘genetic command and control,’ which will enable new ways of governing the Anthropocene and mark the beginning of hyper-modernity: ‘a new age in genetic engineering and biological mastery—a revolutionary era in which the possibilities are limited only by our collective imagination’ (Doudna and Sternberg, 2017: xiii, 100).

To realize this vision, a fundamental regulatory shift is now being enacted by diverse (and often competing) national governments around the world from Argentina to Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, the United States, Japan and China (Ahmad et al., 2021; Mallapaty, 2022). This move has been encouraged by neoclassical economists and corporate actors as a welcome neoliberal reform: a cutting of the legislative red-tape supposedly restricting the self-serving ingenuity of corporations. Once ‘freed’ from cumbersome legislations, the assumption is that companies will develop biotech fixes – in the form of new generations of genetically engineered organisms – to a plethora of intertwined socio-ecological crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, hunger, water pollution, pandemic spillover and industrial crisis.

Following this global trend, the United Kingdom has recently signed into law a Genetic Technology Bill. The new law liberalizes the release and marketing of gene-edited ‘plants and animals, and the marketing of food and feed produced from such plants and animals’ (UK, 2023). Introduced by members of the Conservative Party, the Bill faced a vocal opposition by the Green Party, the Scottish Government and various environmental NGOs and polls that indicate the discontent of a wide majority of the public. It had, nonetheless, powerful backers. The British Society of Plant Breeders Limited, an organization representing the interest of agribusiness corporations, complimented the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs’ commitment to ‘paving the way for Britain to become the best place in the world to invest in agri-food research and innovation’ (BSPB, 2022).

As of today, the European Union (EU) remains one of the few major global markets where genome-edited organisms (GEOs) are strictly regulated. In fact, a 2018 decision by the European Court of Justice reiterated that any organism whose genome has been modified by artificial mutagenesis is ipso facto a genetically modified organism (ECJ, 2018). From this perspective, it does not matter if the genetic mutation has been induced by recombinant techniques or by employing a bacterial enzyme such as Cas9; it does not matter if the induced mutation is large or small. If its genome has been altered through modern techniques of artificial mutagenesis, the resulting organism is by definition a genetically modified organism. As a result, the production and commercialization of all forms of GMOs – including traditional transgenic organisms as well as new forms of GEOs – are subjected to precautionary regulations that impose risk assessment, monitoring and labelling regulations (Gelinsky and Hilbeck, 2018).

Industry representatives and technical experts have come out in opposition to this ‘process-based’ regulatory approach. While this group cannot deny that the genome of CRISPR crops is modified by means of targeted mutagenesis, they argue that these genome-edited organisms are fundamentally different from previous generations of GM crops since ‘genome editing produces genomic alterations that are similar to those that occur through spontaneous and induced mutation’ (Urnov et al., 2018). This position, echoed by many representatives of agribusiness and the biotech industry, suggests that only those organisms whose engineered mutations could never spontaneously occur – such as chimeric organisms – should be regulated as GMOs, while genome-edited organisms should be considered for deregulation. The recently published ‘CRISPR-files’, assembled by the Corporate Europe Observatory, has uncovered a range of covert lobbying tactics used by corporate actors to push these revisionist perspective and manufacture public support for deregulation (CEO, 2021).

Partially as a result of these pressures, the European Commission has finally approved – in the first week of July 2023 – a new draft law that would deregulate the authorization, risk assessment and labelling of so-called New Genomic Technique (NGT): a freshly coined concept referring to recently introduced techniques of targeted mutagenesis such as CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), ZFNs (zinc finger nucleases) and TALEN (transcription activator-like effector nucleases). The new draft law, which will now have to gain the approval of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, stipulates that most genome-edited plants produced via these techniques will no longer necessitate case-by-case approval and will no longer need to be labelled as ‘genetically modified’ once marketed. While existing GMO legislation in the EU has often taken the form of directives – that allow states some flexibility and the possibility of departing from set European standards – the new draft law has been presented as a strict ‘regulation’ that will bind the hands of member states. Therefore, individual member states will not be able to restrict the cultivation of gene-edited plants in their countries nor limit their commercialization (EU Commission, 2023). According to a preparatory study sponsored by the Commission, the law will facilitate the growth of the European biotech industry since ‘over 100 plants, several dozen animals and medicinal applications that are now in the advanced R&D stage could reach the market by 2030’ (EU Commission, 2021).

The effects of this recent round of liberalizations are now cascading through the world market, bringing a new menagerie of gene-edited organisms out of the laboratories, into agricultural farms and fields and, eventually, onto people's plates. Numerous studies have shown the extent to which mutant ecologies are proliferating. Most recently, transgenic glowing fish commercialized as conspicuous pets for wealthy aquarium owners have been found to multiply in multiple Brazilian streams, altering ecosystem dynamics and local biodiversity (Magalhães et al., 2022). Similarly, GM crops have been found to thrive well beyond their allocated areas taking the form of feral GM weeds in rural areas, road verges and ports (Paredes, 2021). ‘Gene flow’, explains a plant geneticist at the University of California, ‘is a regular occurrence among plants. So if you put a gene out there it's going to escape. It's going to go to other varieties of the same crop, or its wild relatives […]. It's clear that zero contamination is impossible’ (Randerson, 2008; Snow, 2002).

The literature on the multiple risks associated with genome editing is ponderous. Off-target effects, unexpected mutations, genetic drifts and ecological unexpected consequences are constantly reported (Zhang et al., 2015; Warwick et al., 2009; Schaefer et al., 2017; Giovannetti et al., 2005; Tabashnik et al., 2013; Gatehouse et al., 2011). Additionally, security agencies constantly warn the public of the constant possibility that new genomic biotechnologies may enable new forms of bioaccidents as well as acts of bioterrorism and genetic warfare (Darpa, 2016; Mullin, 2016). Despite these persisting concerns coming from within established centres of scientific knowledge and state power, powerful structural tendencies are pushing the search for ever-more effective means of ‘genetic command and control’. Sovereign states and transnational corporations are locked in a competitive environment that fuels fears of falling behind in the technoscientific arms race for genetic control and demand the erosion of established precautionary mechanisms. In short, the on-going flow of public and private investments into the genomic industry is fuelled by the same coercive laws of exploitation and competition, which have sustained the acceleration of industrial production throughout the so-called Anthropocene epoch (Borg and Policante, 2022).

Yet, paradoxically, the ecological crisis caused by that very industrial acceleration is now presented as demanding the urgent development of new genomic biotechnologies, which would enable the adaptation of living organisms to new ecological conditions. This has been, for instance, the argument put forward repeatedly by Bill Gates (2018), for instance, in his influential article Gene Editing For Good. We may want to inquire, however, whose ‘good’ has been promoted by the recent proliferation of genome-edited organisms and their release into the biosphere. In most cases, genomic interventions intend to produce ‘better’ life-forms, which can increase the efficiency and resilience of existing bio-production systems. Indeed, the appeal of genomic engineering is exactly founded on this promise of producing a ‘better life’. What ‘better’ means remains, however, a political question whose answer is presently monopolized by those who control the new means of molecular production. As corporate science is directly in the service of private entities guided by a strict market rationality (Rudy and Coppin, 2007), while public research is increasingly pushed to prioritize immediate ‘industrial applications’ and the achievement of measurable ‘socio-economic impact’ (Rhodes et al., 2018; Legg et al., 2021), genomic interventions are mostly geared towards expanding, accelerating and securing the accumulation of capital on a global scale. In this way, genome editing represents the culmination of a long-standing historical trajectory characterized by the introduction of ever new technoscientific means to overcome existing ‘biological barriers’ to capital accumulation (Mann and Dickinson, 1978; Kloppenburg, 1988).

Corporations strive, first and foremost, to accelerate the biological processes mobilized in production. In agriculture and forestry, a great deal of experimentation is focused on finding new ways to accelerate the growth rate of crops and trees; in pharmacology, metabolic engineering aims at accelerating microbial processes of protein synthesis; in the livestock industry, researchers tirelessly pursue the age-old goal of ‘getting animals ready for their fate in less time’. Capital's characteristic need for speed is embodied in fast-growing salmons, tiger puffers and red sea breams (Roy et al. 2022); in fast-growing myostatin knock-out sheep and cattle (Crispo et al., 2015); in genetically modified eucalyptus trees that are ready for harvest in 5 and a half years instead of 7 (Ledford 2014); in engineered bacterial strains, whose metabolism is redesigned to accelerate fermentation processes (Devanthi and Gkatzionis, 2019); and in ‘photosynthetically efficient’ crops (Kromdijk et al., 2016). Countless genomic interventions are directed towards a metabolic acceleration meant to speed up both cellular processes of protein synthesis and socio-economic processes of commodity production (Borg and Policante, 2022).

Genome engineering also assists the expansion of capital accumulation by opening up new frontiers of production. Adjusting living bodies to perform ‘better’ in otherwise highly stressful environments, for instance, can further entrench industrial practices of factory farming. Recombinetics’ Slick Holsteins – a new variety of gene-edited cows recently approved for commercialization in the United States – is described by company representatives as being adapted to ‘withstand the stress caused by tropical production conditions’ (Harrison, 2022; Sonstergard, 2019). While this genomic intervention has been oft-publicized as ecological and humanitarian, it is likely to accelerate the on-going expansion of intensive beef farming in the tropical regions. The environmental impact of industrial livestock breeding in the Global South is already profound. Indeed, cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (Skidmore et al., 2021). The introduction of increasingly efficient living means of meat production is likely to intensify – rather than reverse – this trend. Naturally Cool™ cows have already been hailed for their potential of turning Brazil into ‘another viable source in addition to the US for Angus beef and add billions of dollars in revenue to the industry’ (BTO, 2018; Grossi et al., 2019).

Genome editing can facilitate the expansion of capital accumulation into new geographical areas, but it can also facilitate the intensification of production in loco. Take, for instance, pigs, chickens and cows that have been engineered to resist viral diseases (Pal and Chakravarty, 2019: 271–296; Mehra and Kumar, 2022). These genetic interventions are often presented as an expression of a rather surprising ethical turn taken by giant multinational conglomerates that profit from industrial breeding in concentrated animal feeding operations. Genetic uniformity and confined living quarters have created ideal breeding grounds for viruses. Pandemic threats have imposed limits to the density of animal bodies that can be safely kept in each facility. Thus, genomic research aimed at conferring disease resistance to factory-farmed animals facilitates the accumulation of animal capital by reducing the losses caused by recurrent epidemics. Disease resistance opens the door to a further concentration of bodies in increasingly confined and unsanitary spaces. This would not only create the perfect conditions for new pandemics to proliferate – in turn sparking new calls for gene editing interventions in an endless spiral – it would also magnify the significant ecological impact of the livestock industry. As recent estimates already attribute 12 to 18% of global greenhouse emissions to the livestock sector, anything that contributes to its further expansion is likely to accelerate global warming and ecological crisis (Harrison et al., 2021).

This leads directly to a third dimension of the new genomic politics. As rapidly changing planetary biogeochemical cycles alter the ecological conditions for both capital accumulation and human well-being, genome engineering is increasingly evoked as a technoscientific fix by which complex social issues will be swiftly resolved. For instance, the Impact Report submitted by the EU Commission in support of the liberalization of new genomic techniques presents the latter as a response to ‘the megatrends climate change, environmental degradation and aggravating resource scarcity’ and as ‘one tool contributing to the necessary adaptation of the food systems at global level’ (EU Commission, 2023b). Genetic bioengineering, here and elsewhere, is presented as a means of climate adaptation. Consider, for instance, heat-resistant cattle, drought-resilient crops, GM rice designed to prosper in high salinity environments, CRISPR crops ‘well-suited for use in future conditions where temperatures and other climatic conditions near equatorial regions render farmlands less fertile’ and genetically modified semi-dwarf bananas ‘more resistant to lodging as a result of intense winds, typhoons, and storms, anticipated to increase in severity as a result of climate change’ (Karavolias et al., 2021).

Global warming is also set to magnify the frequency, severity and incidence of a multiplicity of pathogens threatening both plants and animals. In response, agriculturalists are knocking out genes – disrupting their cellular expression – in an attempt to reduce the ‘susceptibility loci’ normally exploited by pathogens. Genome editing now enables the production of wheat, tomatoes and grapes resistant to powdery mildew cucumbers that can withstand yellow mosaic virus and rice resilient to bacterial leaf blight (Langner et al., 2018). Agribusiness is searching for new ways of securing its living means of production in a warmer and increasingly unpredictable climate. Biotechnological fixes are set to augment the resilience of life-forms mobilized during industrial processes of production, while enabling corporations to preserve profitability by adapting to increasingly pressing demands – both by consumers and by legislators – for ‘environmental consciousness’ and ‘sustainability’ (Rutt and Jakobsen, 2022; Weis, 2010).

Corporations no longer content themselves with simply appropriating the living bodies of plants and animals. Corporate technoscience purposefully designs their internal metabolism, and in that way, it redesigns the countless living vectors that constitute the global biosphere. It is driving a biological revolution, which will ripple through the everyday lives of people everywhere. Since each species shapes its own ecological niche, through its metabolic interactions with the surrounding environment, genome editing constitutes an indirect way of constructing the world through the industrial production of living bodies. The metabolic processes taking place at an intracellular scale within each organism shape local and planetary metabolic assemblages and biogeochemical cycles. By purposefully modifying the metabolism of thousands of individual bodies, the biotech industry is slowly altering eco-social metabolisms on a planetary scale in ways that are neither planned nor easy to predict.

In their most audacious visions, molecular biologists promote genome editing technologies as enabling new forms of environmental governance and planetary bio-geoengineering: for instance, investing resources towards the development of genetically engineered bacteria to accelerate carbon capture in oceans or developing new forms of genetic sterilization to ‘shape ecosystems’ and ‘manage invasive species’ (Ma et al., 2022; Nguyen et al., 2023; Devos et al., 2022). In this emerging imaginary, the gene may be turned into a lever to control metabolic pathways at ever-larger scales. Who controls the gene controls the body, who controls the body controls the species and who controls the species controls its lived environment.

Yet, there is a troubling tension at the heart of molecular biology between the growing realization that even the simplest organisms remain too complex to be properly understood at the molecular level and the hyper-modernist attempt to modify those very organisms to make them increasingly legible, predictable and industrially exploitable (Chan et al., 2005). Rather paradoxically, as molecular biology makes visible a world of irreducible biological complexity, genome engineering is embarking on increasingly ambitious programs to rationalize that living complexity. This hyper-modernist attitude reflects a form of scientific reductionism in which organisms are increasingly conceived as reprogrammable ‘molecular factories’, whose metabolism can be functionally tweaked and engineered. Yet, far from achieving a complete and stable control over the biological realm, genome editing seems to foster a proliferation of what Besky and Blanchette recently labelled ‘troubled ecologies’: contradictory spaces that seldom function ‘as perfections of capital's capacity to exploit nature’, but rather represent ‘experimental (and remarkably unstable) projects on and with other beings’ (2019: 6).

While public debates are mostly limited to questions surrounding the health and safety of old and new generations of GM crops, other questions remain largely obscured: How will these new GM bodies transform the way people live and work in agricultural lands, industrial facilities, barnyards and slaughterhouses, in biotech labs and medical clinics? How will they affect lived ecologies? What types of multi-species societies are being constructed through bioengineering practices, by whom and according to what political visions? As we write, these questions are kept at the margins of debates around genome editing by rendering the issues technical and/or juridical – by presenting them as unapproachable to anyone apart from approved scientific and industry specialists (Li, 2007: 123–155). As a result, the emerging international regulatory regime for gene-edited organisms has been largely shaped by discussions purely focused on technical questions of health and safety – whose answer has been monopolized by experts’ opinions – while socio-economic, ethical and ecological concerns have been marginalized. A sweeping de-regulation of genome editing practices is taking place across a number of countries; an epochal shift in the politics of science is being pushed forward with minimal public discussion.

Yet, technoscience is not a separate republic sanitized from political projects and social struggles. Precisely because every genetically engineered body is connected through the web of life to all other life-forms, there is an urgent need to build communal decision-making on the common genomic heritage. Democratizing controversial technologies such as genome editing cannot simply mean to make them more easily and widely available to corporations around the world. Seed-sharing co-operatives like Navdanya in India or the Sme’tsunubil ta shekel Yu’um (‘Mother Seeds in Resistance’) in Chiapas, as well as farmers’ organisations like La Vía Campesina and Movimento Sim Terra have long resisted gene editing as a neo-colonial technology, which restricts autonomy and creates dependence on corporations (Scoones, 2008; Roy, 2015; Heller, 2002; Lapegna, 2016). Numerous indigenous groups have contested the way in which genetic engineering reproduces instrumentalist conceptions of nature, erasing alternative ways of knowing, thinking and relating with nature (Tauli-Corpuz, 2001).

These struggles – despite their ambiguities and contradictions – pose a fundamental question: what would a more radical democratization of these biotechnologies entail? From this perspective, the demands of democracy become impossible to contain within the limited technical considerations peddled by corporate lobbyists. Rather, it spills into other areas: into the need to construct a society in which every person has the time and education to participate in collective decision-making processes about what natures should be collectively produced, in which self-governance is not restricted to answering ready-made questions and in which people can engage in meaningful collective decision-making about organizing our being-in-nature.