Genetically Engineered Foods and Health Benefits

Genetically engineering (GE) allows the creation of desirable variation by integration of desirable genes into a genome of interest without modifications of properties of other genes within a short time by recombinant DNA technology. GE is a potential technology for the incorporation of desirable genes having therapeutic value, nutritional quality, against biotic or abiotic stresses, resistance to pesticides, herbicides, and many more. Since the development of Flavr Savr, the first GE crop, several products, processes, and vaccines have been developed and adopted by over 70 nations globally and the USA remains at the top. With the advancements in molecular biology and next-generation technology (NGS) tools, improved procedures of gene discovery and target insertion with higher precision and efficiency have been achieved in recent years such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-CRISPR associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) and base editing technologies. Genetically modified (GM) crops have not only benefited the global economy but also had a substantial impact on food security, healthy living, climate change mitigation, and overall sustainable development. Here we discuss various GE foods that are developed in different nations to combat infectious diseases and to improve human and animal health directly or indirectly way by reducing the harmful chemicals released into the atmosphere.