Gene Drives: Saving Lives Or Powering Extinctions?

A few months back we talked about the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9 – a technology based on the bacterial immune system that will allow us to make edits to an organism’s genetic code with more ease and accuracy than ever before.
CRISPR is changing the landscape of genetic engineering and synthetic biology. In this episode, we take a look at one of the most powerful applications in this new landscape of genetic engineering: Gene drives. This is an idea that has the potential to save millions of lives and give us unprecedented control over natural populations of organisms. At the same time, it comes with serious risks that need to be studied and understood.

Should we use gene drives at all? If so, what should we use them for? And what safety measures should we put in place?