The GeneConvene Virtual Institute is an initiative of the GeneConvene Global Collaborative, a program within the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health that advances best practices for genetic biocontrol technologies such as those using gene drive.
Gene drive and other genetic biocontrol technologies are emerging technologies with implications for public health, conservation and agriculture. Conversations and discussions about these technologies will benefit from well-informed stakeholders and other interested parties.
New WHO Guidance
The 2014 WHO Guidance Framework for Testing Genetically Modified Mosquitoes published by the WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO-TDR) and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) has been revised and updated.
This revised version takes into account the technical progress made and lessons learned in this rapidly advancing field of research. Best practices recommended in the 2021 WHO Guidance framework for Testing Genetically Modified Mosquitoes will further contribute to the comparability of results and credibility of conclusions in order to facilitate decision-making by countries interested in the potential use of GMMs as public health tools for the control of vector-borne diseases.
GeneConvene Virtual Institute eNewsletter
The Latest About Gene Drive and Genetic Biocontrol
The GeneConvene Virtual Institute is built on a database of content in the categories shown in the tab labels below. Content coming into the Virtual Institute in these categories can be seen in each tab as well as all of the content in each of the categories, organized chronologically.
Featured Content
Risk management recommendations for environmental releases of gene drive modified insects
Y. Devos, J. D. Mumford, M. B. Bonsall, D. C. M. Glandorf and H. D. Quemada, Biotechnology Advances, 2021.
The ability to engineer gene drives (genetic elements that bias their own inheritance) has sparked enthusiasm and concerns. Engineered gene drives could potentially be used to address long-standing challenges in the control of insect disease vectors, agricultural pests and invasive species, or help to rescue endangered species. However, risk concerns and uncertainty associated with potential environmental release of gene drive modified insects (GDMIs) have led some stakeholders to call for a global moratorium on such releases or the application of other strict precautionary measures to mitigate perceived risk assessment and risk management challenges. Instead, we provide recommendations that may help to improve the relevance of risk assessment and risk management frameworks for environmental releases of GDMIs. These recommendations include: (1) developing additional and more practical risk assessment guidance to ensure appropriate levels of safety; (2) making policy goals and regulatory decision-making criteria operational for use in risk assessment so that what constitutes harm is clearly defined; (3) ensuring a more dynamic interplay between risk assessment and risk management to manage uncertainty through closely interlinked pre-release modelling and post-release monitoring; (4) considering potential risks against potential benefits, and comparing them with those of alternative actions to account for a wider (management) context; and (5) implementing a modular, phased approach to authorisations for incremental acceptance and management of risks and uncertainty. Along with providing stakeholder engagement opportunities in the risk analysis process, the recommendations proposed may enable risk managers to make choices that are more proportionate and adaptive to potential risks, uncertainty and benefits of GDMI applications, and socially robust.
More related to this:
Living With the Limits of Our New Clerisy’s Knowledge
Recommendations for Laboratory Containment and Management of Gene Drive Systems in Arthropods
Threshold-Dependent Gene Drives in the Wild: Spread, Controllability, and Ecological Uncertainty
