Posted on behalf of Barb Kiser

It’s big, it’s sterile, and it’s been dubbed ‘frankenfish’ by some. But genetically modified salmon is about to start a process of approval by the US Food and Drug Administration that could make it the first engineered animal destined for consumption by humans anywhere.

On 19-21 September the FDA will be holding two public meetings on AquAdvantage Salmon, a registered GM product of Massachusetts biotechnology company AquaBounty Technologies Inc.

If the extra-large fish, reported to grow twice as fast as normal salmon, pass the 60-day consultation and the rest of the FDA approval process, it could be on US grills in a year and a half.

AquAdvantage Salmon is so fast-growing it could alter the face of fish farming — which as Nature reported in 2009 is itself the fastest growing food sector globally. The engineered characteristic is the result of joining a growth hormone gene from chinook salmon to a control DNA sequence from an eel-like species called the ocean pout. The result is injected into North Atlantic salmon eggs. The company’s publicity, however, makes no mention of the ocean pout gene and simply states that the salmon growth hormone gene is “regulated differently", the Guardian notes.

The fish’s sterility, engineered in another process, will, the company says, prevent any interbreeding with wild or other farmed fish.

It’s been about a year since the FDA said it was ready to regulate GM animals for the human table, after spending a decade developing a policy for the process. During that time researchers came up with a number of ideas for transgenic animals, including the Europig — a low-waste GM porker.

Image: Transgenic and non-transgenic salmon / AquaBounty Technologies