If Switzerland awards anything like its own Nobel Prize, it is the Marcel Benoist Prize. Endowed with 250,000 Swiss francs, this year's award went to biochemist and University of Zurich professor Martin Jinek for his insights into cellular processes that helped genome editing achieve its breakthrough.

Jinek made a decisive contribution to turning a natural defence mechanism of bacteria into a tool that allows genetic material to be modified in a targeted way. That is why the method is also referred to as "gene scissors". And it is precisely these gene scissors that are opening up new possibilities for agriculture as well: they can be used, for example, to make plants more resistant to pests, heat or drought.

EU regulation: the European market is moving ahead

This is not some distant vision of the future. Such methods are already in use in various countries. And the European Union has now also adopted a new legal framework for plants derived from certain new genomic techniques. This makes the question of how Switzerland intends to deal with this technology increasingly pressing.

In fact, the direction was set long ago. In connection with the extension of the moratorium on genetic engineering, Parliament already instructed the Federal Council to draw up risk-based rules for plants obtained through new breeding methods. In 2024, the Federal Council announced that it would present the corresponding dispatch in the first quarter of 2026. It is now not expected until the second half of 2027.

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That is remarkable, especially given the challenges facing agriculture. This year's potato harvest, for instance, has fallen to a historic low. Heat and drought are taking their toll on crops. This is exactly where breeding methods that specifically target robustness and adaptability could play an important role in the future.

Just how urgent the issue is became apparent recently even in Zurich's Wasserkirche, where people were briefed on the consequences of the hot summer for potato growing. "Fervent prayers" for rain may help in the short term, but in the long term, technological answers will also be needed.

And now, of all things, the Swiss science prize comes along and honours a researcher who played a key role in a technology that could make such answers possible. There is something almost symbolic about it.

Import questions and the need for action: the symbolism of the science prize

All the more so because the EU has now created facts on the ground. If certain genome-edited plants are placed on the market there in future without special labelling, Switzerland will face not only the question of its own agriculture, but also that of imports. How should agricultural products be handled that come from the EU and are treated there under the new rules?

The Marcel Benoist Prize is therefore indeed a hint to politicians, this time delivered by test tube. Science has developed the tool. It is now up to politics to create the framework conditions that allow it to be used where it is needed in the face of climate change and increasingly extreme weather: in Swiss fields.

Keywords: Marcel Benoist Prize · Martin Jinek · Genome editing · Gene scissors · Agriculture · EU regulation · Potato harvest · Breeding methods