The role of gene editing, organoids, and in vitro phenotyping in sustainable animal production

There is a critical need for improving animal resilience, welfare, and productivity to meet the nutritional needs of the growing global population. While selective breeding has brought about tremendous improvement in livestock genetics and improving traits, it is a relatively lengthy process to integrate beneficial alleles into the herd and it is not possible to introduce variants identified in other species. Therefore, gene editing provides researchers with a tool to rapidly overcome many of these challenges. This review highlights the advances in gene editing technology, the methods used to generate gene edited livestock, and approaches that can be used to accelerate the discovery of novel alleles linked to specific traits in vitro. Additionally, the application of organoid technology is discussed, and how that linked with gene editing technology can mimic the in vivo physiology and biological functions in vitro, providing answers to important biological questions and decreasing the number of large animals needed for research. Together, these tools will enable production agriculture to be more productive and thus better able to meet the growing worldwide demand for food.