The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) has allocated an initial £30 million in grants to 14 projects focused on using biotechnology to help nature adapt to the climate crisis. These tax-funded initiatives are part of Aria's £54 million accelerated adaptation programme.
Among the projects are efforts to develop vaccines for ash trees, skin treatments for newts, and gene-edited swallowtail butterflies. The teams will work on tools to protect native British wildlife, including the English oak tree and buff-tailed bumblebees.
Yannick Wurm, director of Aria's accelerated adaptation programme, stated that the projects explore how biotechnology can responsibly assist wild animals and plants. One project, led by the University of Exeter, will use Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing on swallowtail butterflies to increase their resistance to insecticides. Another, by Rothamsted Research, aims to edit the genes of long-lived tree species like oaks to enable faster reproduction, potentially aiding adaptation to drought and pathogens.
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, chair of the programme's ethical and social responsibility advisory committee, confirmed that while projects are intended for the wild, no experimental solutions will be released during the programme, which runs until 2030. All grantees will operate in secure laboratories.
Chris Thomas, founding director of the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity at the University of York, noted that these projects offer potentially valuable tools. However, he cautioned that their impact might be modest and difficult to assess, and that interventions could affect non-targeted species.