Thanks to CRISPR, farmers may finally have a good defense against rice blast, a fungal disease so devastating, it’s known as the “cancer of rice.”The challenge: Rice provides more than 20% of the world’s calories, but every year, rice blast wipes out 10-30% of the world’s rice crops, making it a major threat to both global food security and economies that depend on rice production.“Blast is the most serious disease of plants in the world because it affects virtually all growing regions of rice and also because rice is a huge crop,” said Pamela Ronald, a distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis.“The results from this study could help shore up food supply in the future.” —Jenny MortimerWhat’s new? Ronald and an international team of researchers have now found a way to use CRISPR to make plants resistant to rice blast. In small field trials, their gene-edited rice plants yielded five times as much rice as controls when challenged with the fungus that causes blast.“Rice crops with higher yields are needed to meet growing global demand, and the results from this study could help shore up food supply in the future,” said study co-author Jenny Mortimer from the University of Adelaide.The idea: During a rice blast infection, lesions — spots of dead cells — form on the parts of the plant above the ground. Unless a farmer treats the infection early with expensive fungicides, these lesions spread and merge until the entire plant is dead.