What Is The GeneConvene Virtual Institute?
The GeneConvene Virtual Institute aggregates, curates and shares knowledge to advance understanding of genetic biocontrol technologies, such as gene drive, as well as selfish genetic elements found throughout nature.
The 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 and informed decision making for genetic biocontrol technologies such as those using gene drive.
The GeneConvene Global Collaborative is governed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Board of Directors.
GeneConvene Virtual Institute Administrator
Alex Sullivan is a Project Manager for the Population Health Science department at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. His portfolio includes supporting the GeneConvene Global Collaborative as well as clinical and pre-clinical trials for HIV vaccine development.
Prior to joining the FNIH, Mr. Sullivan served as Engagement Manager at the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration, where he was responsible for spearheading stakeholder engagement and partnership management to expand the Foundation’s reach. Previously he was at the Annenberg Foundation Trust, where he supported efforts on a gene therapy-based HIV cure, improving global food systems, and combatting misinformation in the sciences. He holds a graduate degree in Global Studies and International Relations from Northeastern University.
What Is Genetic Biocontrol And Gene Drive?
Genetic biocontrol refers to management strategies for populations of animals, insects, and plants that are either invasive or otherwise deemed to be harmful or pests which rely on genes to modify characteristics of individuals within a target population of organisms so they are no longer invasive and or harmful. A well-established example of a genetic biocontrol technology is the Sterile Insect Technique, a technology developed in and used since the 1950s to control pest insect populations through the systematic release of large numbers of sterile insects of the same species in order to disrupt reproduction and population growth. Newer technologies, including gene drive technologies, use transgenic and genome modification technologies to effect changes in specific animal, plant or insect population. Learn more about genetic biocontrol.
Gene drive refers to genetic processes that lead to the preferential transmission of genes, transgenes or chromosomes to the next generation. Gene drive technologies, if determined to be sufficiently safe and effective, might be used to introduce and maintain genes in specific populations of target organisms for the purposes of controlling the growth and/or the characteristics of the individuals comprising the population. Technological advances in genetics now make it possible to readily assemble transgenes in the laboratory that show gene drive when introduced into the genomes of organisms. Learn more about gene drives.
Why A Virtual Institute?
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.
Decisions by stakeholders regarding the research, development and possible use of gene drive and other biocontrol technologies will benefit from stakeholders having sources of knowledge of the scientific, social, ethical, safety and economic dimensions of these technologies.
Knowledge of gene drive and other genetic biocontrol technologies is growing rapidly but is fragmented and dispersed throughout the internet. The aim of the GeneConvene Virtual Institute is to bring knowledge of gene drive and other genetic biocontrol technologies together in one virtual location and make it readily accessible to the public.
Guiding Principles
The GeneConvene Virtual Institute strives to be an inclusive, balanced, fair and transparent source of knowledge about gene drive and other genetic biocontrol technologies, and to serve researchers, regulators, funders, supporters, policy makers, journalists, decision makers and the public. The Virtual Institute provides a variety of information types, generated by GeneConvene, other subject matter experts, and other external platforms.
The GeneConvene Virtual Institute‘s Knowledgebase initially focused on engineered gene drives and selfish genetic elements found in nature (excluding transposons). It has increased in scope to include information on other genetic biocontrol technologies and approaches. In addition to compiling relevant peer-reviewed scholarly literature, the Knowledgebase collects information from non-scholarly sources including media and digital sources.
Content for scholarly literature comes from peer-reviewed journals and preprint services arXiv and bioRxiv using databases, including Web of Science and WorldWideScience, that are searched at least weekly using search terms such as “gene drive,” “selfish genetic elements,” “transmission ratio distortion,” “meiotic drive,” “segregation distortion,” “underdominance,” “B chromosomes,” “homing endonucleases,” “toxin-antidote,” “driving X,” “driving Y” with the Boolean operator “or.”
Multimedia content is aggregated from internet queries using “gene drive” OR “selfish genetic elements” as search terms and the search engines Google/Google Alerts and TalkWalker. Metasearches using Dogpile and Yippy are performed weekly. Search returns that are subject-relevant will be included in the GeneConvene Virtual Institute knowledgebase if the content is original (re-posts may not be included), contains a byline (content without bylines may not be included), and is posted on a site that is well-described in its ‘About’ page (usually entities or organizations). Content from personal websites, blogs, and social media are not part of the knowledgebase.”
Financial Support
The GeneConvene Virtual Institute is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
