Perspectives
Opinions on and about gene drive technologies and their uses.
Rethinking the future of mosquito control
35341Kabirul Bashar, Dr Zonaed Siddiki. Dr Zonaed Siddiki, et al., Dhaka Tribune, 2025-12-17 11:37:26.
Bangladesh is once again in the grip of a severe dengue and chikungunya crisis in 2025. Hospitals are overwhelmed, fever wards are full, and doctors are working tirelessly. Families live in fear of mosquito bites, while daily news reports chronicle rising infections and deaths. As of December 16, 2025, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has reported more than 100,000 confirmed dengue cases and 409 deaths. However, this figure represents only the tip of the iceberg, as it reflects data solely from hospitalized patients, specifically from 77 hospitals in Dhaka and reports from 64 civil surgeon offices. A substantial number of dengue patients are receiving treatment at home or in various small and large hospitals and clinics that are not included in the official count. This underscores the overwhelming pressure on the country’s health system. At the same time, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has recorded a resurgence of chikungunya, reporting 337 suspected cases, 153 of which were laboratory-confirmed in Dhaka between January and May 2025. Researchers estimate that the true number of chikungunya infections this year may be close to one hundred thousand. As chikungunya testing is available only in a limited number of major hospitals in Dhaka, many cases remain undiagnosed and unreported.
Gene drives, species complexes, and the risks of collateral damage
35296C. Boëte, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 122. 2025-11-09 18:26:26.
The development of engineered gene drive systems continues to garner significant interest. Theoretically, these systems could spread traits in a target species (an approach known as population replacement) or eliminate a population within a few generations (population suppression). Some researchers have promoted this disruptive technology for potential applications ranging from public health (e.g., malaria control) to conservation (e.g., protection of endangered species, elimination of invasive ones) to agriculture (e.g., pest control). But in the case of a gene drive intended to target a specific species, the risk of affecting non-target species must be taken into account, and researchers must strive to minimize collateral damage. Hybridization between a target and a non-target species could result in unintended gene flow, as could the horizontal transfer of the gene drive cassette (1). While some researchers have proposed the “Target Species Complex” (TSC) framework to account for off-target effects, the concept is unlikely to provide a safeguard. Rather, it risks reframing collateral impacts as intentional outcomes, narrowing, rather than broadening, the scope of ecological and regulatory considerations. Researchers must therefore make sure to incorporate risk assessments that take into account the effects on numerous species and make a concerted effort to understand the downstream effects.
Should we edit nature?
35176David Farrier, Aeon, 2025-09-26 14:10:35.
At the end of August 1939, the German archaeologist Otto Völzing discovered around 200 fragments of carved mammoth ivory at the back of a cave in southern Germany. With war just a week away, Völzing’s find was hurriedly collected in a box, where it lay unnoticed in a museum archive for decades. It wasn’t until the 1960s, when the shards were inventoried, that something astonishing emerged out of the heap of broken pieces. They formed an incomplete figurine, with a chimeric mix of features: the body of person, and the head and forearms of a cave lion. Subsequent excavations in the 1970s found further pieces of what has come to be called the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel. Carved from a mammoth tusk around 40,000 years ago, it is one of the earliest examples of the human capacity to imagine forms that don’t exist in nature. Every age of human history since the Lion-Man has tried to think beyond nature. In Hesiod’s Theogony, composed around 700 BCE, the chimera was a compound being with the head of a lion, the body of a dragon, and a snake’s-head tail (and an extra goat’s head protruding from its back for good measure). In W B Yeats’s poem ‘The Second Coming’ (1920), a similar ‘rough beast’ is a harbinger of ruin. In our own time, the chimeras are something different. Living things in every part of the biosphere have been forced by climate change, pollution and the spread of non-native species to adapt their bodies and behaviours to a human planet. They may not have visibly merged forms like the Lion-Man, but they do bear the impression of another species: us.
OPINION: Military Shuts Down Bill Gates Genetically Modified Mosquito Project in West Africa
35137Jon Fleetwood, Substack, 2025-09-12 15:41:16.
Last month, the military government of Burkina Faso has done what no Western regulator dared to do: it ordered the immediate termination of Bill Gates’ genetically modified mosquito project—‘Target Malaria’—and the destruction of all bioengineered insect samples inside the country. This wasn’t a health agency issuing a polite memo. It was a military crackdown on a Gates-funded scheme that released engineered mosquitoes into villages without real informed consent from the people forced to live with the consequences. The press release from Target Malaria itself admits the sequence of events. First came the release: “On 11 August 2025, one small scale release of non gene drive genetically modified male bias mosquitoes took place successfully, in accord with terms and conditions of the ANB and ANEVE permits.” Translation: genetically engineered insects were already unleashed in Burkinabè villages, exposing citizens to an irreversible genetic experiment without their consent. Then came the military order to shut it down: “On 18 August, the national authorities requested the Target Malaria team at IRSS to suspend all their activities. The IRSS team complied with the request.” Finally, the junta (a government that has taken power by military force) made it permanent: “On 22 August, the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation issued a communiqué informing ‘the Burkinabè public that it has terminated all the activities of the project Target Malaria on its territory.’” This wasn’t a pause. This was a military-ordered termination of Bill Gates’ mosquito project.
Is Gene Drive Research Losing Traction?
35023Gregory C. Lanzaro and Ana M. Kormos, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2025-08-12 16:18:27.
Significant progress has been made in developing gene drives, especially for mosquito vectors of malaria. It is widely agreed that a critical next step in advancing this technology is to evaluate it through small-scale field trials. However, obtaining permission to move forward with these trials has stalled, threatening this potentially transformative line of research. In this paper, roadblocks delaying progress are identified from the perspective of a developer group tasked with translating this technology to the field. We suggest that groups engaged in long-running discussions about risk and the formulation of a global regulatory framework are hindering progress. This is because these groups conflate large-scale deployment with small-scale trials, which have very different risk landscapes. Here we argue that confined field trials are essential for accurately assessing risk and should be conducted soon, with regulation by authorities in the country in which they will be conducted.
Releasing GM Mosquitoes in Burkina Faso is Dangerous
35009Irina Vekcha, Countercurrents, 2025-08-02 11:03:44.
The Target Malaria project claims to be able to eradicate malaria by using gene drive technology to eliminate Anopheles mosquitoes, the malaria vectors. There are several gene drive projects around the world, targeting different species (insects, mammals, fungi, etc.), using different types of gene drives, and having different stages of the technology readiness. The details of these projects are provided in the Table 2 of the Gene Drives report, produced by ENSSER, the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility. The Target Malaria project, using the CRISPR/Cas9 system for the Anopheles gambiae elimination, is the most advanced project. The project was conceived in Great Britain, at Imperial College London, in the laboratory led by Andrea Crisanti. The project experimental protocol is very complex: it comprises three phases, each phase focusing on a particular type (strain) of GM mosquitoes. Only the third phase is aiming to fight against malaria, and only this phase is based on the use of the gene drive technology. All the strains are produced by Crisanti’s team and must be imported to Burkina Faso for field trials. After importation, the mosquitoes are managed by the local Target Malaria team led by Abdoulaye Diabate; each phase should normally end with mosquito release by Diabate’s team. The project is moving forward rapidly, thanks to huge capital injections, coming primarily from the Bill Gates Foundation. The project is strongly supported by the NEPAD, New Partnership for Africa’s Development, an African Union agency. The NEPAD, which favors gene drives, has appointed ABNE, the African Biosafety Network of Expertise, to oversee Target Malaria experiment. The ABNE is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, and the NEPAD – by the Open Philanthropy Project, one of Target Malaria’s funding sources. In 2019, within the framework of the first project phase, Target Malaria released 6,400 GM mosquitoes in the Bana village of the Burkina Faso, despite the Burkinabe civil society protests. The project is currently in its second phase, which began in March 2022, following the importation of the second-phase strain into Burkina Faso. Normally, before importing a strain for field trials, the Crisanti team conducts numerous tests to ensure the strain’s quality, and only the strain that meets all the criteria defined by the experimenter is accepted for importation. However, the project has encountered setbacks.
Controversial ‘gene-drive’ strategy could make mosquitoes hostile to malaria parasites
34977Mitch Leslie, Science, 2025-07-24 09:37:48.
To fight malaria and the mosquitoes that spread it, people have drained swamps, showered their homes with insecticides, slathered themselves in noxious repellents, hidden under netting at night, and invented the gin and tonic—as a palatable way to take the bitter antimalarial quinine. Now, researchers report in Nature that they have borrowed a weapon from the mosquitoes themselves. The team genetically engineered mosquitoes to be resistant to parasites that cause malaria by inserting a version of a gene naturally found in some of the insects. They also enlisted a genetic trick known as gene drive to speed the gene variant's spread through mosquito populations in the lab. The strategy is not ready for field testing, researchers caution. But the experiments "are elegantly designed and sound, really showing great proof of principle for driving natural variants of mosquito genes into a population," says functional geneticist Tony Nolan of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who wasn't connected to the study.
Can the world survive without mosquitoes and should we even try to find out?
34934Sowjanya Pedada, LA Post, 2025-06-17 15:08:22.
Scientists have developed gene editing technology that could wipe out malaria-carrying mosquitoes within subsequent generations, offering hope against diseases like Malaria, which kills nearly 600,000 people each year. But as field trials approach, bioethicists warn that deliberately driving a species to extinction raises profound questions about our right to reshape nature. Communities in hard-hit regions now face a difficult tradeoff: accept ecological risks or continue losing lives to preventable mosquito-borne diseases. Mosquito-borne diseases extend far beyond Malaria. Dengue infects up to 3.9 billion people annually across 132 countries, causing approximately 40,000 deaths each year. Zika, documented in 89 countries, can cause severe congenital disabilities like microcephaly. The CDC calls mosquitoes the “world’s deadliest animal,” responsible for over 700,000 deaths each year. In sub-Saharan Africa, scientists at Target Malaria have developed genetic modifications that render female mosquito offspring infertile, causing populations to collapse within a few generations in lab tests. “There are so many lives at stake,” said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with the group. Their method uses male mosquitoes to spread ovary-disrupting genes throughout wild populations. Gene-driven mosquito extinction has ignited ethical debate. A recent study published in Science concluded that deliberately wiping out a species may be justifiable, but only under rare, extreme conditions. “These cases highlight the tension between the intrinsic value of a species and the benefits of eradicating a harmful pest,” said Clare Palmer, a bioethicist at Texas A&M. Environmental experts warn of ecological risks, but scientists stress that only a few mosquito species, mainly malaria-spreading Anopheles, would be targeted. “Extinction is not a likely outcome, nor even a desirable one,” said Tony Nolan of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. “It’s not necessary to make the mosquito extinct to eliminate malaria.”
Gene editing, extinction and ethics: Why open conversation is key
34872Gabriela Harrod, ASU News, 2025-05-26 21:41:15.
In a new paper published in Science, researchers are challenging one of conservation’s deepest assumptions — that extinction is always a failure to be avoided. With new genome-editing tools making it technically possible to eliminate entire species, the question is no longer just scientific, but ethical: When, if ever, should we consider driving a species extinct on purpose? The study, titled “Deliberate extinction by genome modification: An ethical challenge,” brought together ethicists, conservation biologists, ecologists and social scientists to explore this complex question. ASU School of Life Sciences Professor James Collins co-authored the piece, which argues that while extinction should never be taken lightly, there may be “extremely rare and compelling” cases where it is justified. “This is a research area that is inherently counterintuitive,” Collins said. “At a time when biodiversity is more valued than ever, the idea that it could be ethically permissible to deliberately eradicate a species seems paradoxical. But we’re asking: Are there situations where it makes sense?” According to Gregory Kaebnick, a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center and the paper’s lead author, this conversation started over lunch during a National Academies meeting on gene drive research. Collins posed the idea that full extinction might mark an ethical line that genome-editing technologies shouldn’t cross. “The answer we offer in this new paper is, in effect, ‘almost, but not quite,’” Kaebnick said.
Commentary on Gene drive: Communication, hype, and the publics
34870Third World Network, GMWatch, 2025-05-26 21:35:34.
An article in the Journal of Medical Entomology critically reflects on the hype surrounding gene drive technologies, a novel self-spreading form of genetic modification that is designed to engineer entire populations of wild species. The author, a specialist in vector-borne diseases at the University of Montpellier, France, concludes that current communication around gene drives “often borders on propaganda rather than fostering a balanced, 2-way dialogue”. As such, “Research institutions must also exercise caution when promoting scientific advancements in press releases and media, ensuring that accurate, reliable information reaches the public.” The rhetoric surrounding gene drive technologies is often couched in pessimistic language regarding ‘conventional’ tools. The narrow biomedical focus of such discussions also fails to consider systemic forces of vector borne disease, and “often falls short in critically examining health policies or calling for socioeconomic changes”. The current situation however, provides instructive examples of advances in malaria control, including several countries being declared malaria-free, or reporting zero deaths in recent years. Achievements have been gained with multipronged approaches including in vector control, case surveillance, diagnostics, as well as socioeconomic improvement and implementation of poverty alleviation.
Hordes of genetically modified insects set to be released in Australia: ‘They can smell you’
34740Michael Dahlstrom, Yahoo News, 2025-04-03 17:47:00.
Dengue fever is at record levels around the globe, with this trend now beginning to be reflected in Australia as the mosquito species that carries the virus spreads. It means a simple bite could soon trigger symptoms worse than an annoying itch, with victims often experiencing pain behind the eyes, headaches, muscle aches, and nausea for over a week. Surprisingly, elsewhere in the world, one solution to combatting the spread of dengue fever is breeding more of the mosquitoes in large factories. And that’s what UK-based Oxitec is now planning to do in Australia as it partners with the country’s national science agency, the CSIRO. The company operates the world’s largest mosquito breeding factory, which is located in Brazil. Inside are boxes containing thousands of “friendly” mosquitoes that are genetically engineered so only non-biting males survive. After they’re released by local governments, they breed with wild females, and because their offspring will also be majority male, the overall population can rapidly be reduced by over 95 per cent in a few breeding cycles. Australian governments could be purchasing and releasing Oxitic’s strain of “friendly” mosquitoes in the next one to two years, if the plan receives regulatory approval.
3 reasons why the release of GM mosquitoes in Queensland is risky
34554Dr. Perran Stott-Ross, University of Melbourne, 2025-03-04 11:14:23.
The British company Oxitec, in partnership with Australia's CSIRO, has announced plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in Queensland. The initiative aims to reduce transmission of the dengue virus, as well as other pathogens spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito by reducing the size of the mosquito population. The announcement has received significant attention from the public – there's even a petition to the Queensland Parliament to block the release. While these mosquitoes are unlikely to cause adverse health impacts as some have suggested, there are still legitimate reasons for concern. Here is why we should be wary of releasing GM mosquitoes in Australia. Only female mosquitoes drink blood to feed their eggs, meaning only female mosquitoes spread disease to humans. The mosquitoes developed by Oxitec are a Mexican strain of Aedes aegypti, genetically engineered to express a gene that's lethal to females. This means only male mosquitoes can survive and reproduce in the wild. Male mosquitoes don’t bite so they can’t spread disease, but they can still mate with wild Australian female mosquitoes and pass on their genes – both the lethal gene and other genes naturally occur in the Mexican strain of Aedes aegypti. This technique has advantages over similar technologies because it is effective across multiple generations, making the population reduction last longer. It will also only target Aedes aegypti and won’t affect other mosquito species directly. The mosquitoes will also carry a fluorescent gene making them easy to identify. The GM mosquitoes will be sold to businesses and the public, allowing anyone in Queensland to release them on their own property. They can be raised by adding water to a container and placing it outside. Eventually, male mosquitoes will emerge to mate with the wild population. The technology is already used overseas with trials showing drastic reductions in mosquito populations, but the situation in Australia is markedly different and so carries different risks.
Mitigating dengue transmission in Africa: the need for Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes’ rollout
34211Samson Ogunlade, Adeshina Adekunle, Emma McBryde, Frontiers, 12. 2025-01-07 08:57:15.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne viral disease that poses a significant public health concern globally. The disease is primarily transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and the range of clinical manifestations vary from flu-like symptoms to more serious conditions such as dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. The dengue virus (DENV) infects about 400 million people yearly, of which 50–100 million of those become symptomatic, with over 20,000 deaths. Dengue notifications are increasing in Africa. The continent's tropical and subtropical climatic conditions create a conducive breeding environment for mosquitoes and hence, contribute to the spread of the virus. While recent statistics show that there were 15.7 million reported dengue infections in 2010, recent studies show that dengue cases are on the rise in Africa. This situation presents an increasing threat to public health systems already under pressure from other infectious illnesses. Traditionally established vector control methods such as the use of insecticide, emptying or covering water-filled containers and eliminating mosquito breeding sites have had limited success in curbing the spread of dengue. This calls for experimental and innovative strategies to combat the disease effectively. One promising approach—the Wolbachia-based approach, involves the deployment of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the wild mosquito population. This technique has shown great potential in reducing dengue transmission. While the Wolbachia-based technique has demonstrated highly positive results in mitigating DENV, it is not always successful—Wolbachia strategies may struggle in high temperature settings, because some mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia (such as wMel strain) are unable to transmit Wolbachia maternally to their offspring and establish themselves under high temperatures. Therefore, using thermally tolerant strains may be beneficial in establishing Wolbachia infections in mosquitoes especially in regions with high heat conditions. Although Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes have been rolled out in different countries such as Brazil, Colombia in South America; Indonesia, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Thailand, Malaysia, India in South Asia; Northern Queensland in Australia; and the United States of America, there is arguably no deployment yet made in Africa.
For the Sake of 600,000 Children, Science Must Be Bold
34053Laurie Zoloth, The New York Times, 2024-12-16 14:36:13.
Bold ideas in science research used to thrill us; now they seem pretty threatening. When I have written about the ethics of genetically engineered mosquitoes to combat malaria, many of my friends have expressed alarm. “What if it goes badly wrong?” they ask. What if there are unintended consequences that ripple across ecosystems? What if this is one of those technologies that cross the line from innovative to utterly world-destroying And yet, one could also ask, what if we do nothing? For that question, at least we have an answer. A report last week from the World Health Organization reveals that 597,000 people died of malaria last year, overwhelmingly children under age 5, and an estimated 263 million people were sickened. Thousands of families cradled a baby dying from a preventable fever; thousands of pregnancies ended in stillbirth or maternal death. For a time in the early 2000s, it seemed as if the world was gaining ground against malaria, but progress has stalled, cases have risen and the hopes for its near-elimination by 2030 have been scuttled. Global warming, armed conflict and lack of funding are all factors. And while new vaccines certainly will help, they are limited in their effectiveness (they reduce the risk of severe malaria by 30 percent and require four separate clinic visits). For much of the world’s poor, we still rely on the 19th-century technology of bed nets and insecticide. For the past two decades, scientists have explored whether a new technology known as a gene drive might hold the tantalizing promise of eliminating malaria by targeting the mosquitoes that carry the deadly parasite. The reason the gene drive is so potentially revolutionary — but disturbing — is that it uses genetic engineering to introduce changes in mosquitoes that do not stop with one generation, but are preferentially inherited by all future generations.
Opinion: A cautionary tale of experimenting with genetically modified mosquitoes in Uganda
28900Barbara Ntambirweki, The Independent, 2024-02-20 14:44:38.
The Uganda Virus Research Institute is pressing forward with gene drive technology which provides a way to rapidly, permanently, and genetically modify wild animals or plants. Gene drive organisms, are a genetically modified organism (GMO) designed to spread a genetic modification through entire populations of wild or farmed species, and are promoted as a ‘solution’ to pressing problems in the fields of public health, ecology and agriculture. The capacity of gene drives to spread and persist in the environment presents novel biosafety and socio-economic concerns for both people and biodiversity. Several research projects in Africa are advancing in their experiments to develop genetically modified ‘gene drive’ mosquitoes to release into the environment as a public health intervention to combat malaria and some are already releasing GMO mosquitoes similar to those touted by Oxitec. In Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda have allowed experimentation towards gene drive in their countries where some of these are under the auspices of Target Malaria – a consortium of research institutions led by laboratories based at Imperial College in the United Kingdom funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In Uganda, Target Malaria has entered in partnership with the Uganda Virus Research Institute and has commenced entomological mosquito collections from field sites around Kalangala and Mukono Districts.
Otago GE Wasp Project Violates International Gene Drive Agreement
28874GE-Free NZ, Scoop, 2024-02-13 17:02:02.
Professor Dearden, Otago University, has received $11 million from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise (MBIE) to engineer wasps using gene drive technology. He is only consulting with Māori and regulators, ignoring and side-lining the views of other concerned New Zealanders. Gene Drives using gene editing CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) technology. This genetic engineering causes a permanent modification of the organisms genome, which is passed on to all subsequent generations. Gene drives are designed to impact reproduction or kill the developing larvae. Due to the irreversibility of gene drives, any out-crossing across species could collapse the insect ecosystems affecting pollinators and food security. The approval of this gene drive application is a worldwide concern, as it overrides the decision on gene drives being considered at a global level through the UN Convention of Biodiversity (CBD). MBIE and researchers at the University of Otago have violated the agreement to work in unison with the international community. International concern has already been raised by the project.
Perspectives of African stakeholders on gene drives for malaria control and elimination: a multi-country survey
28750Finda, M.F., Juma, E.O., Kahamba, N.F. et al., Malaria Journal, 22:8384. 2023-12-21 15:40:51.
Gene drive modified mosquitoes (GDMMs) have the potential to address Africa’s persistent malaria problem, but are still in early stages of development and testing. Continuous engagement of African stakeholders is crucial for successful evaluation and implementation of these technologies. The aim of this multi-country study was, therefore, to explore the insights and recommendations of key stakeholders across Africa on the potential of GDMMs for malaria control and elimination in the continent. A concurrent mixed-methods study design was used, involving a structured survey administered to 180 stakeholders in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by 18 in-depth discussions with selected groups and individuals. Stakeholders were drawn from academia, research and regulatory institutions, government ministries of health and environment, media and advocacy groups. Thematic content analysis was used to identify key topics from the in-depth discussions, and descriptive analysis was done to summarize information from the survey data. Despite high levels of awareness of GDMMs among the stakeholders (76.7%), there was a relatively low-level of understanding of their key attributes and potential for malaria control (28.3%). When more information about GDMMs was provided to the stakeholders, they readily discussed their insights and concerns, and offered several recommendations to ensure successful research and implementation of the technology. These included: (i) increasing relevant technical expertise within Africa, (ii) generating local evidence on safety, applicability, and effectiveness of GDMMs, and (iii) developing country-specific regulations for safe and effective governance of GDMMs. A majority of the respondents (92.9%) stated that they would support field trials or implementation of GDMMs in their respective countries. This study also identified significant misconceptions regarding the phase of GDMM testing in Africa, as several participants incorrectly asserted that GDMMs were already present in Africa, either within laboratories or released into the field. Incorporating views and recommendations of African stakeholders in the ongoing research and development of GDMMs is crucial for instilling stakeholder confidence on their potential application. These findings will enable improved planning for GDMMs in Africa as well as improved target product profiles for the technologies to maximize their potential for solving Africa’s enduring malaria challenge.
ISAAA Inc. | Genetic Tools For Conservation and Health: What’s The Role of Gene Drives?
28634Kristine Grace N. Tome, Science Speaks, 2023-12-04 11:20:10.
ISAAA Inc., in partnership with the Outreach Network for Gene Drive Research and the Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC), gathered approximately 834 online participants during the webinar Genetic Tools for Conservation and Health: What's the Role of Gene Drives? held on November 16, 2023, via Zoom and livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube. The online session is the first of the 2023 Gene Drive Webinar Series that focuses on the interests of specific countries and aims to promote a productive and balanced conversation on the benefits and risks of possible gene drive applications relevant to national priorities. The Philippines has been picked as the first country to be engaged in the webinar series. The Philippines has been at the forefront of biotechnology research and regulation in Asia for a long time and plays an important role in shaping the region’s views on novel technologies and developing expertise.
New Techniques of Genetic Modification in Pest Control Spark Debate in Canada
28501Sandeep Kunchikor, Express Healthcare Management, 2023-11-26 09:51:07.
Scientists in Canada are urging serious discussions on the use of genetic modification as a new technique in pest control. In a recent report by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, a branch of Health Canada that regulates pesticide use, experts argue that genetic modification could become a powerful tool as older insecticides lose their effectiveness and climate change leads to new infestations. Already, such techniques are being tested to prevent mosquitoes from spreading malaria. However, the authors of the report caution that there are many unknown variables. They claim that the consequences of releasing synthetic versions of natural organisms could be harmful and permanent.
Scientific report urges debate on genetic modification to control insect pests
28490Bob Weber, CTV News, 2023-11-18 11:21:22.
Scientists are learning to turn the genetics of insect pests against themselves, altering the genome of familiar foes in ways that give farmers and doctors new ways to fight them. The burgeoning field offers fresh hope against old scourges such as malaria. And it could provide shiny new tools as familiar insecticides lose their punch and climate change shuffles the deck. But concerns buzz the new technology like a cloud of gnats. "Genetic pest-control tools could dramatically shift our relationship with the environment, not only because of their potential impact on the ecosystem of which we are a part, but also because of their challenge to the social and cultural values that shape decisions surrounding their use," says a new report from the Council of Canadian Academies.
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