Gene Drive in the News
A curated collection of articles from the popular press
What’s the story with genetic pest management (GPM)?
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Invasive speciesK. Guthrie, Predator Free NZ, 2017.
Breakthrough genetic technologies are likely to play a key role in achieving a predator-free future. But it’s important that we understand what the various technologies are now – as they’re being developed – not when they’re about to be implemented. We need to debate ...
How Genetically Modified Mice Could One Day Save Island Birds
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Birds, Gene drive, RodentsBorel, B, Audubon, 2017.
The silent black-and-white footage opens on a seemingly tranquil setting: a burrow where an Atlantic Petrel tends to its chick. Then mice begin scurrying in and out of frame. The dark blurs jostle the adult, darting up to the exposed chick and tearing off bloody bites. They’re ...
Illustrated experiment: modifying mosquitoes to save millions of lives
Tags: Gene driveVolpicelli, G, Wired, 2017.
Malaria, a disease transmitted by a type of mosquito called Anopheles, kills 500,000 people every year, most of them in Africa. But Andrea Crisanti, professor of molecular parasitology at London's Imperial College, has a plan to eradicate it in many countries.
A Revolutionary Genetic Experiment is Planned for a West African Village – If Residents Agree
Tags: Africa, Field trials, Gene drive synthetic, Target malariaIke Swetitz, STAT, 2017.
This small village of mud-brick homes in West Africa might seem the least likely place for an experiment at the frontier of biology. Yet scientists here are engaged in what could be the most promising, and perhaps one of the most frightening, biological experiments of our ...
Gene Drives: A scientific case for a complete and perpetual ban
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, History, Risk and safetyLatham, J, GeneWatch, 2017.
One of the central issues of our day is how to safely manage the outputs of industrial innovation. Novel products incorporating nanotechnology, biotechnology, rare metals, microwaves, novel chemicals, and more, enter the market on a daily basis. Yet none of these products come ...
Sterile Insect Techniques, GE mosquitoes and gene drives
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, History, Risk and safetyHanson, J, GeneWatch, 2017.
One of the great temptations in any field is to promote your solution to a problem as the only solution. The recent application of gene drives to sterilize mosquitoes that transmit malaria or viruses like dengue and zika is an example of this tendency to first develop a ...
Driving out malaria
Tags: Gene drive mechanisms, Gene drive synthetic, Mosquitoes, Other arthropodsNolan, TC, A., Scientist, 2017.
In recent years, researchers have sequenced the genomes of several Anopheles mosquito species, including those responsible for nearly all of the malaria transmission in Africa. With this information, they have begun to identify the genes underlying the insects’ ability to ...
Gene drive and collective oversight
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, History, Risk and safetyEsvelt, K, GeneWatch, 2017.
As one of the scientists who first described how CRISPR could create gene drive systems capable of altering wild; populations, I am morally responsible for the consequences. I'm writing to you in the hope that the people most; critical of the very idea can help. Bluntly, gene ...
The Case for a Global Moratorium on Genetically-engineered Gene Drives
Tags: Gene drive syntheticCivil Society Working Group on Gene Drives, SynBioWatch, 2016.
In view of the significant ecological, cultural and societal threats posed by genetically-engineered gene drives, including threats to biodiversity, national sovereignty, peace and food security, we the undersigned call upon governments at the 13th Conference of the Parties to ...
Gene drives: The good, the bad, and the hype
Tags: Gene driveOuagrham-Gormley, SBV, Kathleen M., The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2016.
Since the early 2000s, many advances in the life sciences, such as the artificial synthesis of the poliovirus and the gain-of-function experiments that enhanced the transmissibility of the H5N1 flu virus, have led to warnings that bioweapons development would soon be getting ...
Extinctions to order: Gene-ocide.
Tags: Gene driveThe Economist, The Economist, 2016.
IN A competition to find the world’s least-loved animal, the mosquito would be hard to beat. Only a few species of the insect carry the parasites that cause human diseases such as West Nile virus, dengue and yellow fever, but the harm they cause is enormous. Malaria kills more ...
Biodiversity, GMOs, Gene Drives and the Militarised Mind
Tags: Gene drive, Gene drive synthetic, Policy, Risk and safetyShiva, V, Inter Press Service, 2016.
A recent report from the National Academy of Science of The United States, titled Gene Drives on the Horizon : Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values”, warns:; “One possible goal of release of a gene-drive modified organism is to ...
Re-Coding for Conservation
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Birds, Gene drive, RodentsHawkes, A, Bay Nature Magazine, 2016.
very year, as summer turns to fall, the mouse population on the South Farallon Islands explodes to plague-like densities, numbering 490 mice per acre, among the highest found on any island in the world. The scientists who live and work there describe the assault of the invasive ...
Gene drive organisms not ready for environmental release
Widener, A, Chemical & Engineering News, 2016.Gene drive technologies have the potential to make important contributions to public health and the environment, but organisms created using them should not be released into the environment at this time, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences. Gene drives use ...
Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Probably Headed to Florida Keys to Fight Zika
Tags: Aedes, Arbovirus, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, North America, OxitecT. Elfrink, Miami New Times, 2016.
The bad news: Zika is coming to Florida. This past Friday, two new cases of the virus linked to serious birth defects were reported in the state, and scientists believe it could spread rapidly come summer as mosquito populations explode. And we're still a long way away from a ...
When Extinction Is a Humanitarian Cause
Tags: Gene driveAdelman, Z, MIT Technology Review, 2016.
Humans have driven species to extinction through our hunger, our ignorance, our desire for economic growth, and our indifference. Will one species of mosquito be the first we eliminate for humanitarian ; The mosquito is Aedes aegypti. It is commonly known as the yellow fever ...
Playing God with mosquitoes? We humans have loftier aims.
Tags: Ethics, Gene drivePugh, J, The Conversation, 2015.
In a startling development in “gene-drive” technology, a team of researchers at the University of California has succeeded in creating genetically modified mosquitoes incapable of spreading the malaria parasite to humans, and which could potentially spread this trait rapidly ...
Genetic Engineering to the Rescue Against Invasive
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Invasive speciesK. Langin, National Geographic, 2014.
Genes for swatting tiger mosquitoes, defanging brown tree snakes, and deporting Asian carp, all nasty invasive species, sound like a swell idea. But the latest idea in eradication—genetic engineering—poses its own risks, warn biotechnology experts. Invasive species wreak ...
GM mosquitoes a ‘quantum leap’ towards tackling malaria
Tags: Gene drive mechanisms, Gene drive synthetic, MalariaA. Vaughan, Guardian, 2014.
New technique injects mosquitoes with a gene that results in mostly male offspring, eventually leading to a population crash
Big Agriculture eyeing genetic tool for pest control
PTI Feed, India, 2008.A controversial and unproven gene-editing technology touted as a silver bullet against malaria-bearing mosquitos could wind up being deployed first in commercial agriculture, according to experts and an NGO report published Tuesday.; ; So-called “gene drives” force ...
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