The EPA Quietly Approved Monsanto's New Genetic-Engineering Technology
It’s the first time RNA interference will be used to kill insect pests.
by Sarah Zhang
Jun 23, 2017
3 minutes
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DvSnf7 dsRNA is an usual insecticide. You don’t spray it on crops. Instead, you encode instructions for manufacturing it in the DNA of the crop itself. If a pesky western corn rootworm comes munching, the plant’s self-made DvSnf7 dsRNA disrupts a critical rootworm gene and kills the pest.
This last step is called RNA interference, or RNAi, and the Environmental Protection Agency last week relying on it. Just a few years ago, RNAi was the hot, new biotechnology generating . But its first
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