New ISAAA Resource Portals on Animal Biotech, Pinoy Biotech, and TALENs

For three decades, the ISAAA website has been a top source of information on agricultural biotechnology. With the wealth of materials on the topic, biotech stakeholders visit the website to get the most up-to-date and reliable information. This year, the ISAAA e-newsletter broadened its coverage from just crops to other topics, such as animals, novel food, and health. This initiative led to another opportunity to provide readers with curated content that match their specific interests. Aside from COVID-19 and gene editing, new resource portals have been launched focusing on animal biotechnology, TALENs, and biotechnology in the Philippines.

Animal Biotechnology Resources

In partnership with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), the Animal Biotechnology Resource was developed to serve as a public repository of information materials on the topic sourced from international workshops organized by USDA, Virginia Tech, and other partners including ISAAA.

The materials, all downloadable for free, include workshop proceedings, videos, podcasts, and presentation slides tackling the latest developments in the field, as well as the regulatory approaches for consideration. The international meetings served as platforms for discourses and forming consensus on the topics. With the newly launched resources, regulators, researchers, students, and other key players in the animal biotech sphere are encouraged to continue learning and engaging about the topic to promote a greater understanding of the technology and harness their benefits to the environment and society.

Explore the Animal Biotechnology Resources now.

Biotechnology in the Philippines

As one of the biotech adoption pioneers in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has set the standards for conducting research and regulating the safe and responsible use of biotechnology techniques. This breakthrough has set the stage for Filipino researchers to develop biotech products that aim to help farmers in food production. Aside from innovations in crop biotechnology, several research efforts have been focused on aquaculture and fishery, detection methods, among others.

To raise awareness, understanding, and acceptance of biotech products in the Philippines, ISAAA Inc. is implementing the project titled Pinoy Biotek na Tayo (We are for Filipino Biotech) in partnership with the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Biotechnology Program. One of the ways to achieve the project's goal is to develop a centralized portal for information materials on biotechnology research and development focused on Philippine technologies. Thus, the resource page titled Biotechnology in the Philippines was launched on the ISAAA website. It contains ISAAA publications, articles from the Biotech Updates (formerly Crop Biotech Update), Pocket Ks, infographics, blog features, and peer-reviewed journal articles highlighting biotechnology applications, regulations, and communication efforts in the Philippines.

Visit the Biotechnology in the Philippines resource page now.

TALENs Resource

One of the tools in gene editing is called transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs). Compared to other tools, TALENS are highly accurate and have added features, such as targeting any DNA sequence, discriminating between methylated and unmethylated DNA targets, and modifying DNA within organelles such as mitochondria. It can be used to help protect plants, mitigate climate change impacts, and improve the quality of plants and other organisms.

ISAAA and the 2Blades Foundation have developed materials to inform the public about this powerful gene editing tool. These include news articles published in Biotech Updates, blogs, infographics, publications, and videos. All of these materials are accessible for free on the ISAAA website.

Know more about TALENs now.

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