Sunday Evening News 493/ 2026
Weekly report on genetic engineering, genome editing, biotechnology and legal regulation.
September 2026-10-05 - October 2026-10-11 Week 41
Meetings und Veranstaltungen
Save the date:
International Congress on Plant Biology, Genome Editing and Crop Sciences (PBGC 2027)
Rome, 17-19. June 2027 | https://kindcongress.com/event/pbgc-2027/
FORTUNA Conference - Research Needs and Innovative Pathways towards Systemic Crop Protection Strategies
Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Königin-Luise-Straße 19, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem, 30.11.2023
https://www.julius-kuehn.de/veranstaltungen/e/event-6794?cHash=985d929aa1da235ab33fad37ac44393f
Press Releases - Media / Presse- und Medienberichte
Government’s vision on Biotechnology 2025 - 2040
In an ever-changing world, the Netherlands aims to be a global leader in the research, development and application of biotechnology, which contributes to our societal goals in the areas of health, the circular economy and food production. We are aligning government instruments for research, innovation and valorisation more strategically with these goals, and we are advocating – both in the Netherlands and within Europe – a forward-looking and resilient regulatory framework
2026 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine Goes to Optogenetics, Light-Gated Ion Channels
Peter Hegemann und Karl Deisseroth erhalten Nobelpreis für Physiologie oder Medizin 2026
Banner T.: Chemie-Nobelpreis: Entscheidung gefallen– Auszeichnung geht nach Frankreich und Japan
Informationsdienst Gentechnik: Gentechnik-Pflanzen: Wie werden neue Regeln umgesetzt?
https://www.keine-gentechnik.de/nachricht/1-konsultation-zu-umsetzung-der-ngt-verordnung-beendet
Testbiotech: Wer gewinnt die ‚Rostige Gen-Schere‘ 2026?
Negativpreis für fragwürdige Anwendungen der Neuen Gentechnik geht in neue Runde
https://www.testbiotech.org/aktuelles/wer-gewinnt-die-rostige-gen-schere-2026/
‚Rostige Gen-Schere‘
https://www.testbiotech.org/rostige-gen-schere/
Gentechnik-Mikroben, Künstliche Intelligenz und ‚Dunkle Materie‘
... für eine Welt von morgen?
Only some selected press releases or media reports are listed here. The daily up-date of the press releases and
media reports are ►here: October week 41
Publications – Publikationen
Galanis, P. (2026): Legislative and Jurisprudential Developments of the Precautionary Principle in European Union
Law. SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=7518178 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7518178
The precautionary principle has evolved from a contested environmental maxim into one of the defining techniques through which European Union law governs scientific uncertainty. Its formal Treaty basis remains located in Article 191(2) TFEU, yet its operative reach now extends far beyond traditional environmental regulation. It shapes food law, chemicals regulation, plant protection products, genetically modified organisms, biodiversity protection, product safety and, increasingly, the design of sustainable finance criteria. This study examines the legislative and jurisprudential development of the principle as a legal mechanism of anticipatory risk governance. It traces the movement from the Commission Communication of 2000 and the early judgments in Pfizer and Artegodan to later case law on Natura 2000, pesticides, chemicals and genetic technologies. Particular attention is paid to the legal thresholds for intervention under uncertainty, the relationship between scientific assessment and political risk management, the demands of proportionality and review, the burden of proof, the intensity of judicial scrutiny, and the distinction between precaution and a demand for zero risk. The analysis also considers recent legislative developments concerning microplastics, endocrine disruptors, persistent and mobile chemicals, bisphenol A and the Taxonomy Regulation. The resulting picture is not of a free-standing licence for restrictive regulation, but of a structured doctrine that requires the administration to identify a plausible risk, confront uncertainty transparently, use the best available evidence and keep precautionary measures proportionate and revisable.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7518178
Zhao J., Qian Y, Zhong X., XunH., Guo D. (2026): Advances in and Applications of Genome Editing in Precision Crop Breeding.
Plants 15 (19), 3057 | https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15193057
Genome editing is becoming an important tool for crop improvement by enabling precise modification of genetic variation. CRISPR-Cas technologies have expanded beyond nuclease-induced mutations to include base and prime editing, transcriptional and epigenetic regulation, multiplex editing, organelle editing and targeted DNA insertion. These advances support the development of agronomically valuable alleles and extend crop improvement beyond conventional selection, recombination and random mutagenesis. Applications now include plant architecture, yield-related traits, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, seed composition and nutritional quality, and extend to de novo domestication, haploid induction and hybrid breeding. Current research is increasingly moving from single-gene modification toward the engineering of promoters, cis-regulatory elements, quantitative alleles and multiple-gene editing, particularly in polyploid crops. Wider breeding applications will depend on efficient delivery and regeneration, recovery of transgene-free and heritable edited germplasm, reliable targeted insertion and validation across relevant environments. Integration with pangenomics, multi-omics, phenomics, artificial intelligence and predictive breeding may further improve target identification, allele design and prediction of editing outcomes, thereby supporting the development of more precise and efficient crop-breeding strategies.
https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/15/19/3057
Deligiannidou E., Ganopoulos J., Papasotiropoulos V. (2026): Molecular Targets and Trait Innovation in CRISPR-Edited
Vegetable Crops: An Up-to-Date Review (2020–2026). Plants 2026, 15 (18), 2885 | https://doi.org/10.3390/plants15182885
Vegetable crops are of fundamental nutritional and economic importance worldwide, yet their improvement through conventional breeding remains time consuming and constrained by genomic complexity. For that reason, over the period 2020–2026, CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing, a new genomic technique (NGT), has emerged as the leading tool for precise, rapid and targeted modification of vegetable crop genomes. In this review, we summarize selected peer-reviewed studies on CRISPR/Cas applications across a broad range of vegetable species. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and potato (Solanum tuberosum) are the most edited species with the CRISPR/Cas system, with tomato being at the forefront, while other crops such as cucumber, watermelon, Brassica species, pepper, eggplant and lettuce, follow. We studied eight trait categories that have been improved, namely biotic stress resistance, abiotic stress resistance, yield and growth regulation, food/feed quality modification, color/flavor modification, storage conditions, herbicide resistance and industrial utilization. Out of these, biotic stress resistance is the most actively targeted category across both tomato and potato, with viral, fungal, bacterial and oomycete pathogens being addressed through the editing of host susceptibility genes. Some advances include editing SlDMR6-1 and DMR6 orthologs to confer broad-spectrum disease resistance, multiplex editing of the MLO gene family to achieve powdery mildew resistance, the utilization of the CRISPR/Cas13 system to confer resistance in RNA viruses in potato, and the engineering of drought-tolerant and quality-improved varieties across multiple species. Finally, the regulatory landscape for genome-edited products in the European Union is currently evolving with efforts to distinguish them from genome-modified products and drive further growth for the field.