This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm David Biella.

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Chestnut trees once carpeted the eastern US.

Three billion of them fed and sheltered many forest residents

until the early decades of the 20th century

when a fungal disease called chestnut blight

killed almost every last one of the trees.

But now the American chestnut is making a comeback in its former range, thanks to genetic modification.

The blight came to the U.S. on imported Asian chestnuts, which are resistant to the disease.

With that resistance in mind,

in the 1980s, the American Chestnut Foundation

began working to cross-breed

the Asian Chestnut with surviving individuals

of its American cousin.

Such crossbreeding is time consuming, however,

and results in something less than a full American chestnut.

In a bid to speed up restoration work and minimize the need for genetic changes,

scientists at Sunni College of Environmental Science and

forestry have introduced genes into the American chestnut from wheat that helped disarm the

fungus.

And in future, genes from its Chinese cousin other trees and even grapes could help make the American

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