When covid-19 began to spread, countries closed businesses and told people to stay home. Many thought that would be enough to stop the coronavirus. If we had paid more attention to pigs, we might have known better.
To prevent their animals contracting diseases, pig farmers employ measures familiar to anyone who has been avoiding covid-19, including contact tracing, disinfecting supplies, and requiring human workers to change clothes before entering a secure barn.
Now the Pig Improvement Company, in Hendersonville, Tennessee, is trying something different. Instead of trying to seal animals off from the environment, it’s changing the pigs themselves. It’s using CRISPR, the revolutionary gene scissors, to make piglets immune to deadly diseases. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
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