The growing demand for high-quality animal protein is a pressing global issue for food security. Aquaculture is expected to play a larger role in meeting the rising demand for animal protein. Unlike many traditional agricultural methods, aquaculture is still in its early stages and faces significant risks, such as a lack of control over reproductive cycles and susceptibility to infectious diseases. Innovations in engineering, health, nutrition, and genetic enhancement technologies are necessary to enhance production reliability and scalability. The genetic enhancement technologies, including selective breeding and genome editing techniques like zinc finger nucleases (ZFN), transcription activator-like endonucleases (TALEN), and clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are the techniques being currently used to target specific genes in various aquaculture species, improving traits such as growth, nutritional profiles, disease resistance and breeding efficiency. Gene editing can also be a breakthrough for producing mono-sex or sex-reversed individuals by disabling genes responsible for sex determination, promoting growth based on sex. Short-term, long-term, or combined breeding schemes can genetically enhance disease resistance. In the coming years, genome-editing technologies will likely be applied in commercial aquaculture breeding programmes, contingent on public and regulatory acceptance.