Modern biotechnology allows us to alter a plant's genome in limitless ways, opening the door to resilient, low-impact, low-input crops. Yet what are we aiming for? What can evolutionary biology and medical genetics teach us about plant breeding? David Des Marais, lab leader at the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, envisions a new approach to identify and implement climate-resilient traits for agriculture, offering a new future of food production and environmental stewardship.
