Washington State University meat scientist Blake Foraker grills a batch of sausage made with pork from gene-edited pigs for a cookout celebrating Jon Oatley’s research team on the WSU Pullman campus.

PULLMAN — Washington State University researchers have received the first Food and Drug Administration approval allowing meat from gene-edited pigs to enter the food supply chain.

It’s the first time any U.S. university has attempted to get FDA authorization to have an animal with CRISPR-modified DNA turned into food for human consumption, said Jon Oatley, professor in the School of Molecular Bioscience at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Oatley uses CRISPR gene-editing to improve the genetic traits of livestock and is working toward FDA approval for a line of gene-edited pigs.

“Up until now, when we were done doing research with those animals, they had to be euthanized and put into a composting facility, because they were not authorized for human consumption,” Oatley said.

According to a WSU press release, the pigs were originally gene-edited to enable researchers to use them as surrogate sires, to sire offspring with traits from another male pig. The technology edits the genes of male animals to be sterile by knocking out a gene called NANOS2, specific to male fertility. The animals can then be implanted with another male’s stem cells that create sperm with that male’s desired traits to be passed on to the next generation.

Five 2-year-old pigs were processed at the WSU Meat Laboratory, and USDA inspected the meat as it does with all meat products, according to a WSU press release.

Oatley wanted to show that the university could get the authorization, and that the inspection process, which includes health and well-being of the animals, found the meat safe for human consumption, and no different from meat from a non-gene-edited animal.

“It sets a template going forward to do this on a larger scale,” Oatley said. “We’re hoping to use what we’ve been able to achieve with these five animals to get blanket approval for any pig that’s carrying this CRISPR modification. This is the stepping stone to something much bigger.”

WSU meat scientists made some of the pork into German sausages, to be used in catering events that raise travel funds for members of the WSU Meat Judging team.

Oatley said the sausage tasted “wonderful.”

”I would have no idea that it was CRISPR-modified unless somebody had told me,” he said.

It’s the next step in eventually getting gene-editing tools out of research laboratories and into farmers’ and ranchers’ hands, Oatley said.

“I believe we can get there in the next three years,” he said. “Hopefully sooner, but three years I think is reasonable.”

The same goes for getting gene-edited meat to consumers, he said.

For Oatley, biotechnology like CRISPR represents the future of sustainable agriculture production.

“It’s what we’ve got to do if we’re going to increase the efficiency of our production systems in order to feed 10 billion people in the next 30 years,” he said.

The pigs’ genetic material is cryogenically preserved, Oatley said. The surrogate sires’ progeny, which are not gene-edited, have not yet been reviewed by the FDA for possible inclusion in the food chain, according to the press release.

WSU also has a small herd of CRISPR-modified cattle and is working on gene-modified sheep production, Oatley said.