Michael Bunce: Genetics Expert on the applications of gene-editing research and the Government shifting regulations

Scientists believe there are great applications for taking gene-editing research outside - under new regulations. 

The Government's planning to introduce legislation this year to let researchers develop and commercialise gene tech products outside laboratories.  

Genetics expert Michael Bunce at Australia's Curtin University says under current laws, useful research for New Zealand has been hampered by red tape. 

He told Ryan Bridge the solution to problems like wilding pine trees is a good example. 

Bunce says making pine trees sterile keeps them in one place and stops the spread around New Zealand. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government's taking genetic editing out of the lab that's been
confirmed from as early as next year. At low risk
and well understood gene technologies can be used outside of
the laboratory settings without any regulation. It's been banned for
thirty years. A dedicated regulator will be set up to
manage the gene technologies. And Michael Buntz is with the

(00:21):
Otaga University and Curtain University, is a professor genetics expert
and he's with us this morning. Mike, Good morning, Good
morning Ryan. What has changed in genomeniting since nineteen ninety
six or since the late nineties.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
An awful lot since over the last thirty years, we've
gone from things like the human genome costing four billion
dollars and taking a decade complete to now been done
for about one thousand dollars in a day. And we've
had the advent of new things, you know, are a
jargons such as Crisper, which is the ability to edit genes.
So we've got lots of genetic information out there, got

(01:00):
the ability to sort of find and replace function within
the genome if you like.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
So it's quicker, it's more efficient, is it safer?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
If it is so these new precision editing tools, as
I set, it's a bit of a fine and replaced
within a document, so we're able to sort of look
for a specific word within a document and replace it
with another piece of genetic code quite easily. So it's
moved into the realm of called precision editing. So we've
always edited the DNA of the organisms around us, especially

(01:31):
things like crops et cetera, because they we've done it
through selective breeding over thousands of years, but that is
speeding up this. So now we've got these gene editing
tools which are sort of almost indistinguishable away from domestic
breeding that's occurred over over decades.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
So we've been doing this outside already, and now we're
going to be able to do it in the lads.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
We've been you know, I guess that through that domestication
process and choosing different variants similar golden kiwi fruit. We've
been doing it for I think, and now we're going
to sort of like speed up that process. And you
know what the government has signaled in this new gene
Technology bill, and we're still light on details about what
it's going to do, but it's going to it's going
to bring us in line with what's happening internationally. We're

(02:18):
saying some of these low risk applications, we're going to
move away from, you know, a fully precautionary approach that
we've got in the moment into into something that's slightly
more permissive.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
And slightly more grown up. In the approach we're taking
what there's a pine tree example that you talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
What is that. Yeah, well, there's lots of applications of
the gene technology. We're using it for making medicines such
as in zelin. At the moment, we're using it for
cancer cells. But when we're talking about you know, planting
things in New Zealand for the first time. We've got
lots of genetically modified organisms in New Zealand at the

(02:58):
moment in terms of meat, distance and food. But when
we're talking about using it actually growing our own material
in New Zealand, we've got to look at examples of that.
Or one of those examples is a sterile pine tree.
So we know about the problem of wilding pines in
New Zealand that they spread into the conservation estate and
onto farmlands. And you know, one of the applications that's

(03:22):
been touted is just when you put a pine tree
in the ground, if it can't reproduce, it stays where
it is, so we don't end up with this big
seed bank sort of moving all around New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
So we can desect pine trees, we.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Can, and that you know, sign has been developing that
technology for years and you know a huge industry for
New Zealand, but also a major environmental problem. So these
are the sort of win wind examples that the government
wants to take a closer look at rather than this
sort of quite precautionary approach. So it's not really been

(03:58):
banned in New Zealand. It's the wrong set of technology,
but it's been so precautionary and there's been so much
red tape and hoop jumping that's going on that that
it's starting to create problems for us.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, really interesting and I'm very excited to see where
some of this research might lead. It's Michael Buntz. He
is a genetics expert. He's with OTAGA and Kirton University
as a professor.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
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Speaker 1 (04:29):
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