Perspectives

Opinions on and about gene drive technologies and their uses.

Socrates Untenured: Ethics, Experts, and the Public in the Synthetic Age

C. Preston,  ISSUES in Science and Technology,  2020.
C. Preston (2020). Three tools have transformed biotechnology over the past decade and a half. Gene reading has made it possible to quickly sequence the genome of any living creature. Gene synthesis has made it possible to construct DNA sequences in the lab from constituent ...
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3 innovative technologies stopping malaria

B. Muni,  The Borgen Project,  2020.
Malaria has plummeted by 40% fifteen years after 2000. A report that NCBI published attributed this to mosquito preventative measures like bed netting and insecticides. These interventions and practices, like wearing light color clothing, help at-risk populations fight malaria. ...
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Beyone the buzz

C. Watson,  The Journal Gazette,  2020.
Lately I have found I need to force myself to follow science stories about something besides the pandemic. A story I consider hopeful involves genetically modified mosquitoes; we are developing a new tool that can reduce disease and save lives. The goal is to dramatically ...
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Please support a global moratorium on the environmental release of gene drive organisms

J. Riss, J. Munic and B. Harlin,  Open Letter,  2020.
J. Riss, J. Munic and B. Harlin (2020). Open Letter. We, the undersigned civil society organizations, write to you to request that the EU Commission fully supports the EU Parliament's call for a global moratorium on the release of Gene Drive Organisms (GDOs). This is in view of ...
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Soon we’ll be able to engineer the wild, can the policies keep up with the science?

M. Montague and A. Kobokovich,  The Hill,  2020.
Humans have been able to genetically alter the world around them for thousands of years. With the domestication of dogs at least 14,000 years ago, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been a constant feature of human society; only recently have we gained the ability to ...
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Species Extinction & the Case for a Global Moratorium on Gene Drives

M. Imken,  ARC,  2020.
One million species are currently threatened with extinction, and humanity faces the challenge of stopping the sixth mass extinction in the history of our planet. Yet a new technology called Gene Drive enables human beings to reprogram wild species by genetic engineering and to ...
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Gene Drive: Can this be the Future of Agricultural Pest Management?

P. Mondal, U. Mohapatra and M. Ganguly,  International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences,  9. 2020.
A world free of hunger may be possible when the agricultural production exceeds the global demand for the food. In the era of increasing population, the need for increased food production can be attainable by managing the destructive pests of the agricultural and horticultural ...
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Jonathan Latham on Gene Drives and the Gates Foundation

James Corbett,  The Corbett Report,  2020.
Jonathan Latham of Independent Science News joins us to discuss his 2017 article, “Gates Foundation Hired PR Firm to Manipulate UN Over Gene Drives.” We talk about gene drives, the dangers inherent in this technology, how the UN is involved, and why the Gates Foundation and ...
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Genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in Florida and Texas beginning this summer – silver bullet or jumping the gun?

B. Allan, C. Stone, H. Tuten, J. Kuzma and N. Kofler,  The Conversation,  2020.
On May 1, 2020, the company Oxitec received an experimental use permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to release millions of GM mosquitoes (labeled by Oxitec as OX5034) every week over the next two years in Florida and Texas. Females of this mosquito species, Aedes ...
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Engineered Gene Drives for Pest Management

G. Miglani,  Biotechnology for Plant Disease Diagnosis and Management,  2020.
Genes in sexually reproducing organisms normally have, on average, a 50% chance of being inherited, but some genes have a higher chance of being inherited. These genes can increase in relative frequency in a population even if they reduce the odds that each organism will ...
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Bioengineering horizon scan 2020

L. Kemp, L. Adam, C. R. Boehm, R. Breitling, R. Casagrande, M. Dando, A. Djikeng, N. G. Evans, R. Hammond, K. Hills, L. A. Holt, T. Kuiken, A. Markotić, P. Millett, J. A. Napier, C. Nelson, S. S. ÓhÉigeartaigh, A. Osbourn, M. J. Palmer, N. J. Patron, E. P,  eLife,  9:e54489. 2020.
Horizon scanning is intended to identify the opportunities and threats associated with technological, regulatory and social change. In 2017 some of the present authors conducted a horizon scan for bioengineering (Wintle et al., 2017). Here we report the results of a new horizon ...
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Gene Drives: Pursuing opportunities, minimizing risk

K. L. Warmbrod, A. Kobokovich, R. West, G. Ray, M. Trotochaud and M. Montague,  Center for Health Security,  2020.
This study analyzed the current state of gene drive technologies, the ways in which they might be deployed in the field, and the state of regulatory policy governing their development.
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Risk assessment challenges of synthetic gene drive organisms

E. Sirinathsinghji,  TWN Biosafety Briefing,  2020.
The development of gene drive organisms (GDOs) is highly controversial, as illustrated by the intense academic, political and societal debates over their potential deployment for a variety of applications from public health to conservation, agriculture and dual-use technologies. ...
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Risk assessment challenges of synthetic gene drive organisms

E. Sirinathsinghji,  TWN Biosafety Briefing,  2020.

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Understanding the Science of Gene Drive and the Potential for an Improved Crop Pest Control System in Nigeria

A. Isah and R. S. M. Gidado,  OFAB Nigeria,  2020.
Several studies have shown that the Cas9-mediated gene drive technology is cheaper and will be easily affordable by the efficient Nigerian scientists to explore. The application of the gene drive technologies have many more controls over several other devastating insects in ...
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When Humankind Overrides Evolution

M. Skipper,  World Economic Forum,  Davos 2020. 2020.
Advances in synthetic biology and other novel genetic procedures could resurrect extinct species or eliminate dangerous pests. What actions are needed now to ensure the ethical and responsible application of new genetic techniques?
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Irreversible ecosystem engineering with Gene Drive Organisms

Save Our Seeds,  Save Our Seeds,  2020.
Gene drive technology is a particular application of the new genetic engineering tool CRISPR/Cas9. It is designed to genetically modify, replace or eradicate wild populations or entire species. So far it works in mosquitos, mice, flies, yeast and nematodes. But in principle it ...
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Gene Drive Film

Save Our Seeds,  ,  2020.
This is a video based on the findings in GENE DRIVES: A report on their science, applications, social aspects, ethics and regulations which you can find here.  There was a Symposium on May 24, 2019 that covers the topics in the report and the presentations at that symposium can ...
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Gene drives : equity demands civility

N. Kofler,  Nature,  565:25. 2020.
At the 14th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity late last year, I witnessed the rapid deterioration of a crucial discussion. It was on the potential of synthetic biology in environmental conservation. What started as heckling turned ...
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These are the 5 most dystopian technologies of 2020 and beyond

M. Sullivan,  FastCompany,  2019.
Tech is always both good and bad. But we live in a time when everything gets weaponized—ideas, images, ancient texts, biases, and even people. And technology provides the tools to do it easier, faster, and with less resources.
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