Special Issue on "Crop genome editing: a big step toward breeding by design”

Genome editing is a type of novel, fast, effective and precise genetic engineering in which DNA could be deleted, inserted, modified or replaced in the target region of the genome of a living organism. Therefore, gene editing technology has created significant impacts on basic biology, medicine, and crop and animal genetic improvement. With the significant development of gene editing and other technologies in recent years, targeted crop genetic improvement and breeding, so-called breeding-by-design, is now becoming a reality. A lot of case studies emerge among diverse crops on tool developments, optimizations, and targeted breeding efforts in genome editing. This special issue “Crop genome editing: a big step toward breeding by design” was planned to report the recent progresses in globe-wide plant genome editing technologies and their applications.

Focus is given but not limited to the following areas:

• Reviews and perspectives of crop genome editing;
• Technological development in genome editing;
• Technological optimization in genome editing;
• Applications of genome editing in plant breeding;
• Gene target creation for basic plant biology

Timelines:

• Manuscript submission to be closed by 30 April, 2019
• Peer review duration from October 2018 to May 2019
• Revisions to be completed by 31 May, 2019
• Targeted issue for publishing in August 2019 (volume 7, issue 4)
• Fast review and decision-making after receipt of manuscripts
• Immediately online after acceptance of each manuscript in ScienceDirect.

In case of any queries in regards to preparation and submission, please feel free to contact with the guest editors for this special issue:

• Dr. Chuanxiao Xie, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  Email: xiechuanxiao@caas.cn
• Dr. Yunbi Xu, Institute of Crop Sciences/CIMMYT-China, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
  Email: y.xu@cgiar.org