Gene editing offers transformative solution to saving endangered species

University of East Anglia

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Pink pigeons feeding

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Gene editing technologies - such as those used in agriculture and de-extinction projects - can be repurposed to offer what an international team of scientists is calling a transformative solution for restoring genetic diversity and saving endangered species.

In a new Nature Reviews Biodiversity Perspective article published today, the authors explore the promises, challenges and ethical considerations of genome engineering, and propose an approach for its implementation into biodiversity conservation.

They argue that gene editing could recover lost genetic diversity in species at risk of extinction using historical samples, such as DNA from museum collections, biobanks and related species.

The multidisciplinary team of conservation geneticists and biotechnologists is co-led by Prof Cock van Oosterhout at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Dr Stephen Turner from Colossal Biosciences, in collaboration with the Colossal Foundation, the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (University of Kent), Globe Institute (University of Copenhagen), Mauritius Wildlife Foundation (MWF), the Mauritius National Parks and Conservation Service (NPCS), and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

“We’re facing the fastest environmental change in Earth’s history, and many species have lost the genetic variation needed to adapt and survive,” said Prof van Oosterhout. “Gene engineering provides a way to restore that variation, whether it’s reintroducing DNA variation that has been lost from immune-system genes that we can retrieve from museum specimens or borrowing climate-tolerance genes from closely related species.

“To ensure the long-term survival of threatened species, we argue that it is essential to embrace new technological advances alongside traditional conservation approaches.”

Conservation successes such as captive breeding and habitat protection often focus on boosting population numbers but do little to replenish the gene variants lost when a species’ numbers crash. 

As populations rebound, they can remain trapped with a diminished genetic variation and a high load of harmful mutations, a phenomenon known as genomic erosion. Without intervention, species that recovered from a population crash may remain genetically compromised, with reduced resilience to future threats like new diseases or shifting climates.

One example of this is the pink pigeon, whose population has been brought back from the brink of extinction - from about 10 individuals to a population now of more than 600 birds - by decades of captive-breeding and reintroduction efforts in Mauritius.

Several of the authors have studied the pigeon’s genetics to reveal that, despite its recovery, it continues to experience substantial genomic erosion and is likely to go extinct in the next 50 to 100 years. The next challenge is to restore the genetic diversity it has lost, enabling it to adapt to future environmental change - genome engineering could make this possible. 

The technology is already common in agriculture: crops resistant to pests and drought cover millions of hectares worldwide. More recently, announcements of plans to bring extinct species back to life have further highlighted its potential.

“The same technological advances that allow us to introduce genes of mammoths into the genome of an elephant can be harnessed to rescue species teetering on the brink of extinction,” said Dr Beth Shapiro, Chief Science Officer at Colossal Biosciences. “It is our responsibility to reduce the extinction risk faced today by thousands of species.”

The scientists outline three key applications for gene editing in conservation:

• Restoring lost variation - bringing back genetic diversity that has been lost from the gene pool of the modern populations of threatened species, using DNA from samples of the species collected decades or even centuries ago, which are stored in natural history museums all over the world.
• Facilitated adaptation - introducing genes from related, better-adapted species to confer traits like heat tolerance or pathogen resistance, equipping threatened species to adapt to rapid environmental change.
• Reducing harmful mutations - populations that have previously crashed in numbers often carry harmful mutations that have become fixed by chance, so targeted gene edits could replace these mutations with the healthy variant from before the population crash, with the potential to improve fertility, survival rates, and overall health.

They also address the risks, such as off-target genetic modifications and unintentional further reductions in genetic diversity, cautioning that the approaches remain experimental.

The need for phased, small-scale trials, and rigorous long-term monitoring of evolutionary and ecological impacts is emphasised, as well as robust engagement with local communities, indigenous groups and the wider public, before broader implementation. The authors stress that genetic interventions must complement, not replace, habitat restoration and traditional conservation actions.

“Biodiversity faces unprecedented threats that demand unprecedented solutions,” said Associate Professor Hernán Morales of the Globe Institute. “Genome editing is not a replacement for species protection and will never be a magical fix - its role must be carefully evaluated alongside established conservation strategies as part of a broader, integrated approach with species protection as a guiding principle.”

Biotech-driven initiatives could also attract new investors and expertise, potentially creating new benefits for existing endangered species programmes. 

‘Genome engineering in biodiversity conservation and restoration’, Cock van Oosterhout et al, is published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity on 18 July.   

Baby pink pigeon

Credit

Jim Groombridge

Pink pigeon squab

Credit

Carl Jones

Journal

Nature Reviews Biodiversity

DOI

10.1038/s44358-025-00065-6 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

‘Genome engineering in biodiversity conservation and restoration’

Article Publication Date

18-Jul-2025

 

Cassava witches’ broom disease takes flight in South America

Cassava witches’ broom disease is quickly spreading across Northeastern South America, threatening a critical food staple for millions of people in Brazil and the continent

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture

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Cassava leaf stalks are analyzed in the laboratory

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Credit: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT / E.Ramirez

Alliance researchers and partners, including Embrapa, Brazil’s largest agricultural research organization, launched a rapid response plan to slow the spread and mitigate potentially devastating consequences for food security and livelihoods.

In 2023, cassava farmers in remote French Guiana watched in shock as their crops withered. They pulled dilapidated stems from the ground. Instead of unearthing massive root bunches, which are cornerstones of diets across South America, they found nothing larger than carrots. Researchers identified the problem as cassava witches’ broom disease, provoked by a little-understood fungus, after analyzing results from a 2024 expedition to French Guiana. It was the first report of the disease in the Americas.

Around the same time, cassava witches’ broom disease was also observed in neighboring Brazil. In 2025, the first two confirmed reports in Latin America’s largest country, in March and May, were at least 1,000 km apart.

Scientists at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (The Alliance) and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Organization (Embrapa) launched a rapid-response plan in June 2025 to mitigate the spread of disease to formalize collaboration efforts that began early in the year. The immediate concern is to slow or contain the spread of witches’ broom and avoid a continental food-security disaster.

“We are facing an emergency,” said Paulo Melo, a researcher at Embrapa’s International Relations Office, during a strategizing meeting at the Alliance’s Americas headquarters in Colombia.

“Cassava is an everyday food in Brazil. If producers, particularly many women and Indigenous communities, don’t have cassava roots, they won’t have anything to eat or anything to make money from.”

Northeastern Brazil is one of the world’s largest consumers of cassava. Brazil, by far, is Latin America’s largest cassava producer. CWBD, as cassava witches’ broom disease is known for its English initials, has plant infection rates as high as 90% in Southeast Asia, where the Alliance first identified the fungal pathogen as the cause of the disease in 2023. Early reports point to staggeringly high cassava mortality in Brazil and French Guiana.

Cassava is a critical source of calories, carbohydrates, vitamins and micronutrients. Easy to grow under even the harshest conditions, its roots and the flour developed from them play an outsized role in diets. Cassava is central to the food security of about 800 million people globally, particularly smallholder farmers. Many African countries consume more cassava per capita than even Brazil. So far, CWBD has not been reported in Africa.

CWBD’s spread in Brazil is additionally concerning because the Amazon is cassava’s center of origin, meaning it was first domesticated there and is home to the plant’s greatest natural biodiversity, including at least 98 wild relatives. Because the disease is new to South America, scientists believe there is little natural resistance to it.

While a separate line of research is needed, CWBD likely jumped from a yet unknown host in Southeast Asia to cacao, avocado and cassava, raising the concern that it could jump back from cassava to cacao in South America, which is also cacao’s center of origin. Alliance researchers expect to understand cacao’s susceptibility to the fungus that causes witches’ broom, Ceratobasidium theobromae.

Science for prevention

With CWBD flying across South America, the race is on to understand the extent of the threat. The Alliance-Embrapa collaboration has several immediate actions aimed at containing witches’ broom. Ultimately, researchers hope to find a way to treat CWBD, or understand the natural resistance that some cassava varieties have to the pathogen and transfer those characteristics into new breeding lines.

There is currently no treatment for CWBD. The only way to eradicate it is by collecting all infected plants in an area and burning them. But because some infected plant stems remain viable for planting – ones that don’t show outward signs of infection – transmission is believed to be strongly linked to trade in cassava stakes, which are the primary material for cassava propagation.

“Embrapa’s main concern now is stopping witches’ broom so it does not put the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at risk,” said Jane Simoni, at Embrapa’s International Relations Office.

“This work is about South-South collaboration and fighting hunger and poverty. This problem is aimed directly at the most vulnerable people in very poor regions of Latin America.”

Immediate priorities are to map the distribution and severity of CWBD in northeastern Brazil. For this, scientists will need to implement a standardized set of molecular tools first developed for Southeast Asia, that can be used for in-field detection of C. theobromae. Alliance researchers aim to deploy this technology in the region and provide Embrapa’s large network of experts with detection tools.

Scientists also want to map cassava diversity and urgently collect wild cassava relatives and cassava landraces – the varieties farmers have selected and cultivated over generations. But the key is for researchers to get to the plants before they are infected.

Brazil maintains large collections of both cassava varieties and wild relatives. But Embrapa’s Melo said new collection expeditions should be launched soon. Part of the Alliance-Embrapa collaboration would include bringing new material to the Alliance’s gene bank in Colombia, Future Seeds, which has almost 6,000 cassava accessions (plant samples) from 28 countries, including 1,557 from Brazil.

The accessions must be kept alive and replicated in vitro, a delicate task. Plant samples must be quickly transported to suitable facilities to ensure they stay alive.

Future Seeds researchers distribute several new varieties of cassava every year but breeding new varieties is time-consuming. Past analyses by the Alliance identified sources of resistance to brown streak disease in cassava, a major threat in Africa. Brown streak disease research is part of ongoing Alliance research.

“It’s hard to understate the importance of the cassava germplasm collections,” said Jonathan Newby, the leader of the Alliance’s cassava research team.

“These form the genetic backbone for breeding new varieties and finding and understanding natural resistance to disease. It’s critical that material facing threats from witches’ broom is collected, screened for disease, and quickly transported to in vitro storage facilities for research.”

Out of about 300 cassava varieties they tested, the Alliance’s cassava breeders have found multiple varieties that display resistance to witches’ broom in Southeast Asia. Cassava in Future Seeds and other gene banks may also prove to have some level of resistance. While the pathogen is new to South America, it is unlikely that many plants have natural resistance, but scientists hope some natural resistance exists.

“This all takes time and resources,” said Embrapa’s Simoni. “You can’t do an experiment this week and have the results next week. That’s not how it works. We’re working to quickly bring together as many international experts as possible to confront this challenge together. We also need to ensure Africa is prepared, as the impact of witches’ broom there could be profound. We have to act now. This is science for prevention.”

The witches’ broom work builds on decades of collaboration between the Alliance and Embrapa, which recently entered a new phase focused on further strengthening ties between the organizations.

“The Alliance and Embrapa expect to make significant contributions not only to witches’ broom response and research but on other mutual interests, including food security, climate action and food system transformation,” said Maya Rajasekharan, the Alliance’s Managing Director for the Americas.

A fastidious fungus

Alliance scientists and partners are at the forefront of CWBD’s troubling rise in recent years. In addition to identifying C. theobromae as the cause of witches’ broom in Southeast Asia (which was previously thought to be a bacterial or viral infection), researchers also grew the fungus in laboratory conditions, a first-time feat that took researchers two months. This allows researchers to better understand how the fungus functions, test it under controlled conditions on cassava plants, potentially devise treatment methods, and breed CWBD-resistant varieties.

“It’s from a family called ‘fastidious fungi’ and it lives up to its name,” said Wilmer Cuellar, who leads the Alliance’s Crop Protection Team.

“It’s hard to identify, very difficult to isolate, and scientists needed decades to associate it with witches’ broom.”

Once Cuellar’s lab sequenced C. theobromae, they discovered it had been infecting cassava in Southeast Asia since at least the 2000s, and cacao since the 1960s. The incidence of witches’ broom disease appears cyclical and often flares up after long rainy seasons. The region is currently facing another major outbreak that started in 2022 in at least a half-dozen countries that produce cassava for starch, a multibillion-dollar business critical to smallholder farmers there.

Cuellar is concerned C. theobromae may behave differently in the Amazon. Humid conditions are far more constant there than in Southeast Asia, potentially creating an environment where the fungus could thrive and quickly spread. While predicting where CWBD will arrive next, it could potentially continue its path through South America’s northern Atlantic countries, including Colombia, which has its largest growing areas in the country’s north.

“The terrain is totally different in South America and the fungus will likely fly,” Cuellar said. “We’re already seeing it spread rapidly with more severe symptoms. This is a big problem.”

For access to the full package of multimedia and press materials, click here.

Cassava Witches' Broom Disease [VIDEO] | 



Cassava witches' broom under the microscope


Credit

Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT




Detail of a cassava plant affected by Witches' Broom Disease



 

Comparing a healthy (Right) and diseased (Left) cassava plant

Researcher Alejandra Gil in the laboratory diagnosing cassava sample

Scientist Wilmer Cuellar scans cassava plants for signs of witches' broom disease.
Credit

Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT / E.Ramirez

 

Recycled tyre tech boosts railway resilience and cuts waste

University of Technology Sydney

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The recycled rubber grids on a stretch of test track laid at Chullora NSW. Photo: Rakesh Malisetty.

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New research has shown that a world-first system of rubber shock absorbers made from recycled tyres can significantly protect railway tracks from damage, addressing the dual challenges of high maintenance costs and national tyre waste.

The technology was validated over a two-year period by a collaborative team from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney Trains, Transport for NSW, and industry partners EcoFlex and Bridgestone, following extensive monitoring at a live Sydney Trains freight line in Chullora.

Researchers installed track sections with the rubber underlay alongside conventional track sections for a direct comparison, monitoring vibration, track settlement, and ballast degradation under real-world conditions.

The results, detailed in the research paper “Effects of Rubber-Intermixed Ballast on Train Loading Response Through Field Monitoring in Western Sydney” and published in the Canadian Geotechnical Journal, confirmed the sections with the rubber underlay showed significantly less degradation and greater stability.

The patented technology involves placing the tyre cells in a specific layout made from recycled tyres infilled with waste materials such as spent ballast and coal wash. Recycled rubber grids cast from worn out conveyor belts from mining sites are also placed directly beneath the rail track’s primary load-bearing layer, known as ballast.

The technology addresses a long-standing engineering challenge: the high cost of maintaining conventional tracks.

“The rubber-based underlay effectively protects the ballast preventing it from being pulverised and extending the life of the entire track structure,” said UTS researcher Distinguished Professor Buddhima Indraratna, the original inventor of this technique, and Director of the UTS Transport Research Centre.

"Additionally, the underlay controls the way the train load is distributed to the deeper, softer and often wet soil beneath the track, preventing unacceptable soil settlement and weakening of the overlying track. 

“This translates directly to lower maintenance costs, fewer track closures for the public, and improved network reliability.”

Dr Richard Kelly, Chief Technical Principal for Geotechnical Engineering at SMEC Australia and an advisor on the project, said: “If widely adopted by railway asset owners, this will save Australian rail industry millions of dollars annually by reducing the demand for freshly quarried rock for ballast that is very expensive and not carbon friendly.”

The project provides a powerful solution for the over 50 million end-of-life tyres Australia generates annually.

“Finding sustainable, onshore uses for this material is a national priority, and at the same time, we need to reduce our reliance on finite quarried materials,” said Professor Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn from the UTS Transport Research Centre.

“We have proven we can turn a significant waste stream into a high-value asset that makes our critical infrastructure more resilient and advances the circular economy.”

Building on this success, the research team will now expand the work through a newly announced $740,000 Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant. This next phase will test the technology in more demanding locations, such as at bridge approaches and junctions, where abrupt changes in track stiffness create high-impact zones prone to rapid degradation.

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Journal

Canadian Geotechnical Journal

DOI

10.1139/cgj-2024-0507 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Effects of rubber-intermixed ballast on train loading response through field monitoring in Western Sydney

Article Publication Date

17-Jul-2025

 

Why some ecosystems collapse suddenly—and others don’t

Laboratory experiments on magnets provide surprising insights into the future of Earth’s tipping points

Rothamsted Research

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A new study published in the journal One Earth reveals that the way ecosystems collapse—abruptly or gradually—may depend on internal complexity, much like how magnetic materials behave under stress.

The study, led by Professor John Dearing at the University of Southampton with colleagues from Rothamsted Research, Bangor University, and Edinburgh University, challenges the prevailing assumption that climate tipping points always happen suddenly. Instead, it shows that some large-scale Earth systems may be experiencing gradual collapses that are easy to miss, with profound implications for climate policy and planetary resilience.

"Some systems snap. Others sag," said Professor Simon Willcock of Rothamsted Research, one of the study team. "Our findings suggest that the classic model of abrupt tipping—like a lake suddenly turning green from algae—may not apply to some of Earth’s most important systems, such as forests, ice sheets, or ocean currents."

To investigate, the researchers turned to an unlikely source: magnetic materials. In the lab, magnets can be pushed between alternative states using external fields. These stress-responses mirror how ecosystems shift under environmental pressure. The team found that materials with simpler, homogeneous structures showed abrupt, irreversible changes—akin to ‘hard’ tipping points. But more complex materials exhibited ‘soft’ tipping, where changes occurred incrementally as internal components realigned.

This analogy helps explain why large, diverse systems—like rainforests or ocean circulation—may appear stable even as they quietly reorganise under stress.

Key insights from the study:

• Complex systems reorganise gradually under stress, masking early signs of collapse.
• Faster climate change increases the risk of abrupt transitions, even in systems that would otherwise change gradually.
• Systems that change gradually may be more easily restored—if action is taken early enough.
• Viewing ecosystems at the wrong scale may cause policymakers to miss vital warning signs.

The authors warn that inaction could be fatal, as delayed responses allow stress to accumulate unnoticed—like frogs unaware that the water is boiling.

"Our work suggests we may already be crossing tipping points without realising," said Dearing. "For too long, we’ve treated tipping points as dramatic collapses. These findings show that some systems may slide into collapse silently. That makes them even more dangerous. Slowing the rate of climate change is essential—not only to avoid catastrophic collapse, but to buy time for systems to adapt and recover."

“Slow changes can be deceptive,” said co-author Professor Roy Thompson.  “Laboratory observations of tipping points in magnetic materials give us a safe, controlled way to understand what we can’t test directly in ecosystems and in the global climate system, without relying on computer models.”

The study underscores the importance of scale, complexity, and timing in both modelling and managing global change. It calls for more nuanced definitions of tipping points, investment in high-resolution monitoring, and urgent action to reduce the pace of environmental stressors.

“This work flips the script on climate risk,” said Willcock. Not all tipping points are abrupt. Some are slow and silent—and we may already be inside them.  If we wait for ecosystems to scream, we’ll have waited too long. The real danger is in systems that whisper while they fall apart.”

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Journal

One Earth

DOI

10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101358 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Reconciling global tipping point theories: insight from magnetic experiments

Article Publication Date

18-Jul-2025

 

One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health issues

Principals say providing proper care often is hard to achieve

RAND Corporation

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Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.

 

About 40% of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38% said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

 

“Our results suggest that there are multiple barriers to mental health screening in schools, including a lack of resources and knowledge of screening mechanics, as well as concerns about increased workload of identifying students,” said Jonathan Cantor, the study’s lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. 

 

In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a youth mental health emergency. Researchers say that public schools are strategic resources for screening, treatment and referral for mental health services for young people who face barriers in other settings.

 

Researchers wanted to understand screening for mental health at U.S. public schools, given increased concerns about youth mental health following the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

In October 2024, the RAND study surveyed 1,019 principals who participate in the RAND American School Leader panel, a nationally representative sample of K-12 public school principals.

 

They were asked whether their school mandated screening for mental health issues, what steps are taken if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, and how easy or difficult it is to ensure that such students received adequate services.

 

Researchers found that 30.5% of responding principals said their school required screening of students with mental health problems, with nearly 80% reporting that parents typically are notified if students screen positive for depression or anxiety.

 

More than 70% of principals reported that their school offers in-person treatment for students who screen positive, while 53% of principals said they may refer a student to a community mental health care professional.

 

The study found higher rates of mental health screenings in schools with 450 or more students and in districts with mostly racial and ethnic minority groups as the student populations.

 

“Policies that promote federal and state funding for school mental health, reimbursement for school-based mental health screening, and adequate school mental health staff ratios may increase screening rates and increase the likelihood of successfully connecting the student to treatment,” Cantor said.

 

Support for the study was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health.

 

Other authors of the study are Ryan K. McBain, Aaron Kofner, Joshua Breslau and Bradley D. Stein, all of RAND; Jacquelin Rankine of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Fang Zhang, Hao Yu and Alyssa Burnett, all of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute;  and Ateev Mehrotra of the Brown University School of Public Health.

 

RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries.

 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.21896 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Screening for Mental Health Problems in US Public Schools

Article Publication Date

18-Jul-2025

 

Trends in physician exit from fee-for-service Medicare

JAMA Health Forum

About The Study:

 Over time, physician exit from traditional Medicare has increased. This result is consistent with earlier findings, but exits remained high even after the pandemic, which likely accelerated some physicians’ exit. The findings may reflect multiple factors, including the greater burden of new communication methods (e.g., portal messages) and demands for clinical documentation.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Hannah T. Neprash, PhD, email hneprash@umn.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.2267)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Health Forum: JAMA Health Forum is an international, peer-reviewed, online, open access journal that addresses health policy and strategies affecting medicine, health and health care. The journal publishes original research, evidence-based reports and opinion about national and global health policy; innovative approaches to health care delivery; and health care economics, access, quality, safety, equity and reform. Its distribution will be solely digital and all content will be freely available for anyone to read.

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Journal

JAMA Health Forum