Perspectives
Opinions on and about gene drive technologies and their uses.
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Unleashing the swarm: Battling the global mosquito menace and defending public healthJ. Entine and S. Moxon, Genetic Literacy Project, 2023.
There is one solution embraced by global health experts that should be pursued aggressively, if with some caution. Scientists in real-world trials have altered the genomes of entire animal populations, including mosquitoes, to thwart the vectoring of diseases and control pests ... |
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Guerrilla eugenics: gene drives in heritable human genome editingA. D. Cutter, J Med Ethics, 2023.
CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing can and has altered human genomes, bringing bioethical debates about this capability to the forefront of philosophical and policy considerations. Here, I consider the underexplored implications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene drives for heritable human genome ... |
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Malaria Cases In U.S. Trigger Unfounded Claims About Bill Gates, Mosquito ProjectB. Y. Lee, Forbes, 2023.
When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an alert about finding four malaria cases in Florida and one malaria case in Texas, it created quite a buzz. After all, these were the first reported cases of people actually catching malaria in the U.S. since ... |
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Off Target: Gene Drives and the Balance of LifeSave Our Seeds, 2023.
This is a compilation of conversations with experts about gene drive technologies and the science/social questions it raises. |
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Worldwide Experts on Gene DrivesSave Our Seeds, 2023.
We are travelling the world speaking to some of the world's leading thinkers, activists and academics on the impact of gene drives. Join us for this video series as we hear from a diverse range of experts on one of the most controversial new emerging technologies that we face. |
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Is Bill Gates Releasing Millions of GMO Mosquitoes?!A. Wong, Tech ARP, 2023.
Claim : Bill Gates Is Releasing Millions Of GMO Mosquitoes! People are sharing a World Mosquito Program video as evidence that Bill Gates is manufacturing and releasing 30 million genetically-mosquitoes every week, from his mosquito factory in Colombia. |
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Generation game: gene-edited mosquitos to fight malariaJ. Opara, Sci Dev Net, 2023.
Population-level changes in the genetic make-up of one of the world’s deadliest animals could provide a key in the fight against malaria, proponents of a radical new technology argue. So-called gene drive technology, where genetic changes are passed down through generations, ... |
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Cell biology: Selfish B chromosomes unleashed by a dysfunctional chromosome segregation systemP. Ferree, Current Biology, 33:R431-R434. 2023.
A study in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster shows that a defective chromosome segregation system allows non-essential B chromosomes to transmit at higher-than-Mendelian frequencies. |
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Genetically Engineered Mosquito experiment in California’s Central Valley haltedH. Bourque, Friends of the Earth, 2023.
In a victory for environmentalists, scientists and vulnerable agricultural communities across California, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced yesterday the withdrawal of a permit request for a mass release of experimental genetically engineered ... |
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Editorial: Genetic control of insect pest species—achievements, challenges, and perspectivesI. Häcker, D. Bartsch, A. Choo and F. Marec, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 11. 2023.
Genetic control is a type ofbiological control and a promising approach to regulate insect pest populations in a species-specific manner. It is based on targeting the reproductive capacity of the target pest species to reduce population size to non-critical levels. The best known ... |
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Probing “Selfish” Centromeres Unveils an Evolutionary Arms RaceM. Lampson, The Scientist, 2023.
The so-called Robertsonian (Rb) fusions that led to these rapid karyotype changes are relatively common chromosomal rearrangements. But their accumulation in the populations of Madeira Island and in multiple other isolated mouse populations elsewhere is likely due to another ... |
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A gene drive is a gene drive: the debate over lumping or splitting definitionsS. L. James, D. A. O'Brochta, F. Randazzo and O. Akbari, Nature Communications, 2023.
Gene drive technologies are being considered as a new approach to address a variety of currently intractable global problems, including to prevent disease transmission, reduce crop loss, and preserve biodiversity1. There are some outside the genetics research community who argue ... |
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Synthetic gene drives as an anthropogenic evolutionary forceA. D. Cutter, Trends in Genetics, 2023.
Genetic drive represents a fundamental evolutionary force that can exact profound change to the genetic composition of populations by biasing allele transmission. Herein I propose that the use of synthetic homing gene drives, the human-mediated analog of endogenous genetic ... |
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Gene Drives Are ComingD. Lowe, Science, 2023.
Consider the “gene drive” idea - there are a lot of variations, but the general idea is that you introduce a genetic sequence into an organism that can bias (drive) its own inheritance into the next generation. This is a thumb-on-the-scale unnatural selection if ever there ... |
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Gene Drives: Target Malaria is underestimating the risksC. Then, Testbiotech, 2023.
The Target Malaria consortium has for several years been planning to conduct field trials using genetically engineered mosquitoes in Burkina Faso. The aim is to transfer artificial gene constructs, i. e. the so-called ‘X-shredder’, into wild populations of the mosquitoes. ... |
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Gene Drives and Vector-Borne Diseases: A Comparative Perspective Using Malaria as a Case StudyS. Todi, The Takshashila Institution, 2023.
Gene drives are an emerging technological application to reduce the prevalence of vector-borne diseases, crop pests, and non-native invasive species. This method for vector control is currently at the research stage, with parallel community engagement programmes being carried out ... |
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Gene Drives and Vector-Borne Diseases: A Comparative Perspective Using Malaria as a Case StudyS. Todi, The Takshashila Institution, 2023.
Gene drives are an emerging technological application to reduce the prevalence of vector-borne diseases, crop pests, and non-native invasive species. This method for vector control is currently at the research stage, with parallel community engagement programmes being carried out ... |
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Social justice environmental activists move to block gene editing to control invasive species and promote biodiversity. Here’s why they’re misguidedS. Smyth, Genetic Literacy Project, 2023.
Control of invasive species has been extremely difficult with eradication virtually impossible. To control invasive plant species, chemicals are commonly used while in some instances removal of plants by hand, as Shiva advocates, is undertaken. Efforts to control invasive animals ... |
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Complicated expansion trajectories of insertion sequences and potential association with horizontal transfer of Wolbachia DNAY. H. Miao, D. W. Huang and J. H. Xiao, Zoological Research, 44:273-275. 2023.
Insertion sequences (ISs) are the simplest structural transposable elements (TEs) in prokaryotes, consisting only of a transposase coding sequence and its bilateral short terminal inverted repeats. Due to their gradually streamlined genomic construction, TEs rarely exist in the ... |
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Gene Drives Could Fight Malaria and Other Global Killers but Might Have Unintended ConsequencesM. Cobb, Scientific American, 2023.
Every year more than 600,000 people die from mosquito-transmitted malaria, most of them children under age five. Some insects that are disease vectors, such as mosquitoes, are currently expanding their range around the world, bringing new threats. Genetic engineering can fix this ... |
