A Perspective article published in Nature Reviews Diversity looks at genome engineering for biodiversity conservation and restoration.
Prof Bruce Whitelaw, Professor of Animal Biotechnology and Director of The Roslin Institute, said:
“Biodiversity across our planet is both facing unprecedented challenges and increasing recognised as critical for planetary health. Genome editing technology offers approaches that overcome aspects that current approaches addressing biodiversity cannot address – it can restore lost genetic diversity and increase the resilience of endangered species. Genome editing technology is advancing fast and for species where we know much about their genetic make-up could be used now to reduce genetic load and enable adaption to environmental change. This could include restoration of lost variation but we are still some way-off from restoring a species – although this is foreseeable for the future. No single technology can solve all biodiversity concerns. Genome editing should be adopted alongside traditional conservation methods and habitat restoration. The driver should be for social benefit, have societal involvement, and be guided by science-based regulation – and should be viewed as another useful method in the race to safeguard the world’s needed biodiversity.”
Prof Dusko Ilic, Professor of Stem Cell Science at King’s College London, said:
“The article is a thoughtful and forward-looking synthesis, offering a powerful vision for integrating genome engineering into conservation biology. However, its weaknesses lie in over-optimism, lack of robust comparative cost-effectiveness analysis, and occasional underplaying of ecological, regulatory, and ethical risks—especially in complex field scenarios.
“The paper persuasively argues that genome engineering can address genomic erosion—an underappreciated long-term threat in conservation biology—by restoring adaptive genetic variation and reducing genetic load. The technology has potential, but the evidence base is currently stronger in theory and in model organisms than in demonstrated success with real-world.
“The authors assume that the relationship between genome-wide variation and fitness is sufficiently understood to justify editing decisions. In reality, the genotype–phenotype–fitness map remains poorly resolved in most non-model organisms, which weakens confidence in editing targets. What improves fitness in captivity or small restored habitats may not translate under fluctuating wild conditions.
“The paper clearly articulates how genome engineering can target fixed deleterious alleles, reintroduce lost immunogenetic diversity, and enhance climate adaptation capacity—things traditional conservation (e.g. protected areas, captive breeding) cannot accomplish once variation is lost.
“The concept is compelling but lacks quantitative modelling or comparative data to support the claim that genome editing is more effective or feasible than scaled-up traditional approaches in most cases.
“The argument presumes that ancestral or heterospecific alleles can be confidently identified and reintroduced without negative pleiotropic effects, but this is rarely tested rigorously outside lab settings.
“The paper is also light on cost-benefit comparisons. For example, how does gene editing for climate resilience compare (in cost, efficacy, and ecological risk) to investing in habitat corridors that allow natural gene flow?
“International approvals for edited wildlife release is a probable limiter of near-term feasibility. Regulatory inertia and public scepticism that have historically limited the rollout of genetically modified (GM) organisms—particularly in agriculture, where decades of commercial GM crop use remain contentious in many countries despite robust safety data. Scientific bodies (e.g., WHO, NAS, EFSA) consistently find no substantiated health risks from approved GM crops, yet public acceptance varies widely. The first GM crop was approved in the US in 1994. Thirty years later, only about 30 countries cultivate GM crops, and about 70 allows imports but not domestic cultivation.
“The distinction between technical readiness (editing) and ecological readiness (release, integration, adaptation) is important. Timescales needed for breeding, backcrossing, release, and population establishment, are equally complex. In species with long generation times, edited lineages may not reach ecological relevance for decades.
“While critical of de-extinction, the authors do not fully confront the blurring of boundaries in practice—e.g. Colossal Biosciences’ projects (which some authors are affiliated with) walk a fine line between de-extinction branding and conservation justification.
“The critique of de-extinction would be more credible if potential conflicts of interest were explicitly addressed, and if more scrutiny were applied to projects that market proxy-species restorations as conservation.
“The call for responsibility is ethically sound, but implementation guidance is vague. How, for example, will conservation scientists ensure openness when working with private-sector collaborators like biotech firms or proprietary genome platforms? How engineered lineages may tie future conservation efforts to specific technologies or patents, raising issues of access, control, and continuity?”
Prof Tony Perry, Head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Molecular Embryology at the University of Bath, said:
“This timely Perspective collates potential contributions from the revolution in ‘genome engineering’ (including genome editing) to biodiversity conservation. The piece points out that to be effective, these advances need to include advanced assisted reproduction methodologies, such as embryonic and stem cell chimeras and nuclear transfer cloning. In addition, the behaviour of individual or small numbers of gene variants moved into a foreign genome may be difficult or impossible to predict, making it desirable to replicate entire genomes from the oldest sources available.
“The challenges of achieving this are considerable even for well-studied species, but by raising the profiles of these challenges, the Perspective promises to accelerate our efforts to solving them for species conservation and its retroactive cousin, de-extinction.”
‘Genome engineering in biodiversity conservation and restoration’ by Cock van Oosterhout et al. was published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity at 00.01 UK time Friday 18 July.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00065-6
Declared interests
Dusko Ilic: “I declare no conflict of interest.”
Tony Perry: “None”
Bruce Whitelaw: “I receive funding from BBSRC, Roslin Foundation, and Gates Foundation. I am a member of FSA’s Advisory Committee for Novel Foods & Processes, and the Engineering Biology Responsible Innovation Advisory Panel.”