Why the UK could end up deploying risky gene drives while ignoring natural biological control

Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, Regulation, Rodents
J. Mathews, GM Watch, 2020.

First they cloned Dolly the sheep. Now they’re targeting grey squirrels. The article was one of several reporting that Britain’s red squirrels might soon thrive again, thanks to scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh using CRISPR-based gene drives to eradicate the invasive greys, which are blamed for driving out the native reds.

The first step in this process involved designing and modelling a suitable type of gene drive to do the job. In a just published preprint, the Roslin scientists claim to have done exactly this via a novel combination of three gene drives called HD-ClvR (Homing, Daisyfield, and Cleave-and-Rescue) that, they say, could “effectively control a targeted grey squirrel population, with little risk to other populations”.

And while the Roslin researchers have made the appropriate noises about fully exploring the ecological implications of such an intervention and broadly consulting those that may be affected, there are, as we shall see, some influential players pushing for the adoption of the gene drive strategy.

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