ISAAA Launches Brief 56 - Breaking Barriers with Breeding: A Primer on New Breeding Innovations for Food Security

As modern biotechnology rapidly moves forward, ISAAA continues to share the latest cutting-edge biotechnologies to its network of stakeholders and beneficiaries with its most recent publication about new breeding innovations and their impact on global challenges.

Breaking Barriers with Breeding: A Primer on New Breeding Innovations for Food Security (ISAAA Brief 56) is ISAAA's most recent addition to its Briefs series. It highlights the most available tools used in genome editing and their impact on global food security. The primer explores new breeding innovations for plants and animals, the regulations related to them, their prospects in Africa and Southeast Asia, their potential contributions to food security, and how to effectively communicate the benefits of these innovations to different stakeholders.

The Brief 56 launch was held on December 13, 2021, via Zoom and was attended by more than a hundred audience members from around the world. ISAAA teams from both the SEAsiaCenter and AfriCenter were present, led by their respective center directors Dr. Rhodora Romero-Aldemita and Dr. Margaret Karembu. Also present were ISAAA Global Coordinator Dr. Mahaletchumy Arujanan, and Dr. Paul S. Teng, ISAAA's Chair of the Board, who delivered the keynote message during the launch. All were also authors of the primer, each contributing a chapter of the publication. Other author-contributors present during the launch were Dr. Diane Wray-Cahen and Dr. Justin Bredlau of the United States Department of Agriculture, and Dr. Gabriel O. Romero, Executive Director of the Philippine Seed Industry Association. Ms. Annalyn L. Lopez, Director Coordinator of the Department of Agriculture Biotech Program Office in the Philippines, was also present to provide the welcome message. Dr. Abraham J. Manalo, Executive Secretary of the Biotech Coalition of the Philippines, gave the launch's closing message.

ISAAA's Brief Series started in 1996 and consists of numerous publications about the advances of modern biotechnology, most notably the annual global status report on commercialized biotech/GM crops. Brief 56 marks a new milestone for ISAAA as it expands its horizons to not only focus on transgenic technology for crops but also explore the latest ground-breaking technological innovations in plant and animal breeding.

Brief 56 is available to all and can be downloaded for free. For a recap of the launch, read the Science Speaks Blog. Watch the launch on demand on ISAAA.org YouTube channel.