Gene Drive Technology in the News
Genetically Engineered Mosquito Imminent Mass Release Ignores Science, Public Health and Environmental Risks
20577H. Bourque, Friends of the Earth, 2022-03-07 11:00:22.
In defiance of science and public health concerns, today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the mass release of billions of experimental genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes into the United States’ most populous and agriculturally significant states. The biotechnology company Oxitec was granted an Experimental Use Permit for the release of a genetically engineered version of the species Aedes aegypti across Fresno, Tulare, San Bernadino and Stanislaus Counties in California and in Monroe County in Florida. This will be the biggest release of GE insects in the world. EPA’s approval came despite growing concerns raised by scientists, public health experts and environmental groups about potential impacts of the experimental releases to public health, the environment and endangered species. No publicly available data supports Oxitec’s claims that GE mosquitoes will reduce incidence of mosquito borne diseases. An independent peer-reviewed study from Yale University scientists revealed that over two years of continual releases of the GE mosquitoes at a test site in Brazil failed to reduce populations of Aedes aegypti. The Yale study also found that the GE mosquitoes bred with local Aedes aegypti, resulting in hybrid mosquitoes in the wild that may be more aggressive, more difficult to eradicate and may increase the spread of mosquito-borne disease.
GMO mosquitoes set for release in California to quell disease
20572M. Renda, Courthouse News Service, 2022-03-07 10:48:47.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the experimental use of genetically engineered mosquitoes in California and Florida to reduce the populations of invasive mosquitoes that carry a host of infectious diseases like Zika and dengue fever. “With mosquito and vector-borne diseases a growing concern in California, we see Oxitec’s technology as an important additional option to control the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito,” said Dr. Mustapha Debboun, general manager of the Delta Mosquito and Vector Control District, a government agency in the Central Valley. “We look forward to working in partnership with Oxitec and have been impressed with results from their previous projects in Brazil and the Florida Keys.” The Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were historically relegated to tropical and subtropical zones but have since invaded every continent on Earth except Antarctica. They are capable of bringing the diseases that plague tropical regions with them.
New tech fights fall armyworm by letting offspring die
20568V. Ouma, Sci Dev Net, 2022-03-01 09:43:19.
Scientists have developed a new technology that could control the devastating fall armyworm crop pest by releasing genetically-controlled males that suppress populations as subsequent offspring cannot survive, a study says. The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, which was detected in Sub-Saharan Africa for the first time in 2016, could lead to one-third maize yield losses in some countries and up to US$6.3 billion loss annually, according to the study published in the journal BMC Biotechnology. The gene technology developed by Oxitec, a UK-based biotechnology company that genetically modifies insects to assist in insect control, enables production of male-only cohorts of the friendly fall armyworm that when released into farmer fields will mate with pest female fall armyworms, and their female offspring cannot survive, resulting in fewer pests on the crops and therefore less damage
Should we kill every mosquito on Earth?
20519J. Phelan, LiveScience, 2022-02-28 08:05:44.
Before you grab that can of bug spray, know this: While some mosquitoes are dangerous to us, not all are. Even those that are sometimes harmful tend not to feed on humans, preferring honeydew, plant sap and nectar, according to Mosquito Joe, a mosquito control company. There are around 3,500 mosquito species, but "only around 100 will potentially bite and spread disease to humans," Steven Sinkins, a professor in microbiology and tropical medicine at the Centre for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, told Live Science in an email. For instance, Culiseta mosquitoes often bite humans, but are not known to carry any debilitating diseases, while Toxorhynchites, which are common the world over and tend to live in forests, prefer nectar sugars to blood, according to Entomology Today. Therefore, it probably wouldn't be necessary to get rid of every mosquito species. Instead, we could target the more problematic ones, such as Aedes aegypti, which carry diseases such as yellow fever and Zika. A. aegypti is now ubiquitous, but it wasn't always this way. The species first spread out of Africa during the slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries, through trade with Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, and via troop movements during World War II, according to the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit based in Australia.
A UC malaria initiative program receives grant for work researching genetically engineered mosquitoes
20483S. Slater, The California Aggie, 2022-02-23 08:39:35.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease, was discovered in 1880, and has remained widespread in tropical regions around the equator including parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, resulting in thousands of deaths and a significant blow to economic development in these regions. Many of the attempted strategies to eliminate malaria in the past have planned to do so by eliminating mosquitoes entirely — but according to a recent press release, the Vector Genetics Laboratory (VGL) at UC Davis, in collaboration with a UC malaria initiative program that originally started at UC Irvine, and with the financial support of a $10.2 million grant from Open Philanthropy, is taking a different approach. “Mosquitoes are a part of the ecosystem,” Greg Lanzaro, project principal investigator and director at VGL, said. “Our strategy does not eliminate mosquitoes. The mosquitoes will still be there, they’ll just be incapable of transmitting malaria. In every sense these mosquitoes are normal mosquitoes, except for the fact that they can’t transmit malaria.” The idea is called a “population modification strategy,” Lanzaro said, explaining that groups at UC Irvine and Johns Hopkins University genetically engineered mosquitoes that are incapable of transmitting the malaria parasite. “The way that malaria is transmitted is that the mosquito bites a person who has malaria and it picks up the parasite in the blood that it feeds on,” Lanzaro said. “Then the parasite develops in the mosquito so that when the mosquito bites the next person, they spread the parasite. Our mosquitoes have been engineered with a couple of genes that kill the parasite inside of the mosquito, so they’re not able to transmit.”
First ever gene-edited ticks offer new weapons against Lyme disease
20524N. Lavars, New Atlas, 2022-02-16 08:14:12.
Gene editing in ticks had been thought to be impossible until now, and with good reason. Tick embryos are very tricky to inject because the egg that contains them has a tough layer on the outside, high pressure levels inside, and is also coated in a waxy layer the mothers create using what's called the Gené's organ."Despite their capacity to acquire and pass on an array of debilitating pathogens, research on ticks has lagged behind other arthropod vectors, such as mosquitoes, largely because of challenges in applying available genetic and molecular tools," said Monika Gulia-Nuss, a co-senior author of the study and a molecular biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. Gulia-Nuss and her research team, which included scientists from the University of Maryland and Penn State University, believe they have finally cracked the code. The first step in the breakthrough technique involves ablating the Gené's organ to prevent the formation of the waxy coating. The eggs were then treated with chemicals benzalkonium chloride and sodium chloride to both eliminate the tough protective layer and lower the pressure inside the eggs.
Could Crispr Flip the Switch on Insects’ Resistance to Pesticides?
20288E. Mullin, WIRED, 2022-02-02 11:53:17.
WHILE THE COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world in 2020, another disease was quietly infecting more than 220 million people on the continent of Africa: malaria. That year, the disease led to more than 600,000 deaths, most of them children. Caused by the parasite Plasmodium, the illness is spread through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor spraying have long been some of the most effective strategies for combating the disease. But decades of using these chemicals has lessened their potency. It happens like this: Insecticides kill off most of the mosquitoes in an area. But a small number may survive because something about their genetic makeup makes them unaffected by the pesticide. Mosquitoes within that small population mate with each other and pass on their genes to their offspring, breeding more resistant mosquitoes. In some cases, resistance has built up just a few years after the introduction of an insecticide. It makes fighting deadly mosquitoes a constant game of whack-a-mole. Insecticides remain the frontline in fighting malaria, because interventions like building mosquito-resistant housing are still experimental, and the effort to develop a vaccine has taken decades. Last summer the World Health Organization recommended Mosquirix, the first anti-parasitic vaccine, for African children under age 5, but it is only 30 percent effective at preventing serious disease, and will take many years to achieve approval and distribution among individual nations.
Gene Editing Is Popular, But Controversial, Research Are
20387Relias, RELIAS MEDIA, 2022-02-01 09:18:26.
Gene drive research carries great potential for controlling insect vectors of devastating diseases, but there are multiple unresolved ethical concerns. Unanticipated “downstream” effects on ecosystems, or in organisms that carry the gene drive machinery, are possible. To help researchers balance risks and benefits for society and humanity, scientists involved in the Controlling and Countering Gene Editing in Mosquitoes research project developed a code of ethics for gene drive research. Today, gene drive researchers are focused on diseases that mosquitoes carry. The goal is to make a mosquito that cannot infect a person with malaria. “All of a sudden, it’s become a very hot research area. With the discovery of CRISPR, everybody wants to apply CRISPR to everything. But here is an area where it actually makes sense,” says lead author George J. Annas, JD, MPH, director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics, and Human Rights at Boston University.
Crisp Genes
20283J. Mckenna, The Simple Science, 2022-01-29 11:44:36.
Imagine we had the power to use genetic technologies to stop one of humanity’s most dangerous predators. What is that predator? Sharks? Crocodiles? Snakes? Think far, far smaller. It is in fact, the mosquito.Mosquitos cause all sorts of nasty diseases like the Zika Virus, Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever, and malaria. While nobody really wants to contract any of those diseases, and they’ll all make you pretty miserable, they’re nothing compared to the frankly hellacious malaria being one of the single biggest killers of humans in history. Well, plot twist, we actually do have the technology and it comes in the form of some genetic machinery discovered in bacteria: CRISPR-Cas9 (or CRISPR for short).
Scientists find transmission chain-breaker, give new hope for fight against malaria
20473ANI, ANI, 2022-01-27 08:09:19.
A recent study, published online in 'PLoS Biology', has revealed that blocking a key protein found in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes -- the principal vector for malaria transmission to humans in Africa could thwart infection with malaria parasites and thus prevent them from transmitting the parasites to humans. The study was undertaken by Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In a lab experiment, the researchers used CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology to delete the gene for a protein called CTL4 from Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. This deletion made the mosquitoes highly resistant to the malaria parasite. The researchers found that disrupting the CTL4 protein brought a 64 percent decrease in infection prevalence. The researchers believe that targeting the CTL4 protein could be the basis for new strategies to control malaria in regions where it is still endemic.
Track New Zealand’s Bid to Take Back Nature
20169K. Peek, Scientific American, 2022-01-25 09:05:48.
A thousand years ago the islands that today form New Zealand were riotously wild. Birds, reptiles and invertebrates flourished in lush forests hundreds of miles from any other landmass. Māori settlers in the 1200s brought Polynesian rats for food, and together the humans and the rodents began to shift the ecological balance. Native species started to go extinct. Enter European ships, bearing new carnivores: more aggressive rat species, plus mice, stoats, and others. These ground-based predators hunted differently from the falcons and other aerial threats New Zealand wildlife had evolved with. Native birds that slept in burrows made easy prey for prowling mammals. Invasive predator populations exploded, devastating native wildlife. But in the past 60 years humans have intervened to help old New Zealand ecosystems claw their way back. First, a single five-acre (two-hectare) islet called Maria Island (Ruapuke in Māori) was declared rat-free by ecologists in 1964, five years after volunteers set poisoned bait. It was a special case. The white-faced storm petrels at risk there were especially charismatic—they appear to walk on water—and easily gained public support. The ample baiting effort also got particularly lucky with its placement, ecologists say. Nevertheless, the serendipitous success kicked off decades of eradication efforts.
Could we delete diseases passed down through our DNA?
20278E. Rayne, SYFY, 2022-01-23 11:33:23.
What has now been proven possible was once the stuff of science fiction dreams. CRISPR has shown it can successfully edit out detrimental genetic conditions before they are inherited — which could mean the beginning of the end for hereditary diseases. It could also help obliterate invasive species from ecosystems under attack. Imagine if gene editing could delete conditions you never asked to be born with while getting rid of the cane toad invasion in Australia. CRISPR-Cas9 has been able to successfully edit DNA again and again, but it’s never done anything like this. Kind of like DNA autocorrecting itself, the editing needs to make deletion in a cell happen during a certain phase of meiosis. Researcher Kimberly Cooper of UC San Diego, who coauthored a study recently published in PLOS Biology, figured out exactly when to get to that meiotic window and how to control which copies of genes are handed down to the next generation.
Gene drives and metaphors
20127B. Nerlich, Making Science Public, 2022-01-21 09:32:53.
I have been writing about developments in the biosciences for twenty years. In that time, I have covered a wide variety of topics, such as cloning, genomics, the human genome project, the microbiome project, faecal microbial transplants, synthetic biology, epigenetics, genome editing and now gene drive. I was lucky enough to get many reflections on these topics (by me and other colleagues!) published in the appropriately titled journal New Genetics and Society. The newest addition to this family of articles is one on gene drives – a range of controversial technologies that can potentially be used for the eradication or conservation of animal species – written with Aleksandra Stelmach. It has a certain family resemblance with the other articles, as it too deals with the use of metaphor in framing a particular issue in the biosciences. However, it is also quite different. While the other articles mainly examined media articles on the genetic or genomic topics they covered, this article is based on the analysis of interviews with gene drive experts and practitioners reflecting on their and others’ uses of metaphors. The article was prompted by emerging findings from a Wellcome Trust funded project, led by Sarah Hartley, aiming to increase understanding of how people communicate about gene drives. Aleksandra carried out 30 interviews with scientists, experts, and NGOs working in sectors or being involved in sectors relating to gene drive research in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.
CRISPR Technology Can Eliminate Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes
20133S. Krishana, Now, 2022-01-19 13:10:41.
Scientists have uncovered a new technique they call the “precision-guided sterile insect technique,” or pgSIT. While most CRISPR procedures affect organisms that spread diseases by passing a gene change down generations, this system is more limited. It targets male mosquito genes that are linked to fertility. As a result of changing these genes, any offspring these mosquitoes have would be infertile. “pgSIT is a new scalable genetic control system that uses a CRISPR-based approach to engineer deployable mosquitoes that can suppress populations,” said Omar Akbari, one of the study’s authors. “Males don’t transmit diseases, so the idea is that, as you release more and more sterile males, you can suppress the population without relying on harmful chemicals and insecticides.” But it’s the female population that spreads diseases, so pgSIT targets them, as well. According to the study, the CRISPR technology treatment renders female mosquitoes unable to fly or hold their wings up. It also makes them slower and more lethargic in their movements. Combined, these effects lower the chances that these female mosquitoes will mate or successfully find a blood source and attach to it to spread disease.
Genetic Strategy Reverses Insecticide Resistance
20108H. Tasoff, The Current, 2022-01-18 17:08:09.
University of California biologists have now developed a method that reverses insecticide resistance using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. A team including UC Santa Barbara researchers Craig Montell(link is external) and Menglin Li(link is external), UC San Diego researchers Bhagyashree Kaduskar, Raja Kushwah and Professor Ethan Bier of UCSD’s Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS) used the genetic editing tool to replace an insecticide-resistant gene in fruit flies with the normal insecticide-susceptible form. Their achievement, described in Nature Communications(link is external), could significantly reduce the amount of insecticides used. “This strategy could be used to reverse the resistance of mosquito disease vectors that spread devastating diseases that impact hundreds of millions of people each year,” said Craig Montell, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental Biology at UC Santa Barbara.
Nuclear technique cuts mosquito numbers in Cuban trial
20111M. A. Madsen, IAEA, 2022-01-13 17:14:31.
A pilot trial of a SIT campaign was conducted between April and August 2020 in an area of 50 hectares in El Cano, an isolated neighbourhood of southwest Havana. Arroyo Arenas, another neighbourhood of similar size, was used as an untreated control site. In the pilot trial, almost 1.3 million sterile male mosquitoes were released. Male mosquitos do not carry dengue, bite, nor feed on blood. The IAEA supported Cuba in attaining equipment to separate male and female mosquitoes ahead of irradiation and release and helped equip mosquito rearing facilities. Prior to the trial, Cuba had little capacity in insect rearing and the IAEA supported Cuban fellows to be sent for training on the technique in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and at the IAEA laboratories in Austria. "Using the SIT for mosquitoes is relatively new anywhere in the world, and pilot trials like this one show how promising they can be," said Rui Cardoso Pereira, Head of the Insect Pest Control Section at the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques for Food and Agriculture.
Scientists expand CRISPR-Cas9 genetic inheritance control in mammals
20038M. Aguilera, Phys Org, 2022-01-12 09:43:07.
Led by graduate student Alexander Weitzel, Grunwald, Cooper and their colleagues have now succeeded in developing CRISPR-Cas9 inheritance control in male mice by shifting the gene editing window to more closely match the timing of meiosis in both sexes. Their results were published December 23, 2021 in the journal PLOS Biology. The achievement advances the prospects of scientists being able to use genetic editing for new laboratory models in an array of research pursuits, from investigations of human disease to therapeutic drug design to invasive species removal. "For these gene conversion strategies to work in any context—in the lab or in wild populations—you need the mechanism of gene conversion to work in both males and females," said Cooper, associate professor in the Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biological Sciences. "It seems as though the reason this process was previously working in females is because we were closer to the female meiotic window. Now that we've moved Cas9 expression to within the meiotic window in males, it works in them too."
Information Sharing in Senegal on the Gene Drive Technology as a potential Complementary Tool for Malaria Vector Control
19902AUDA-NEPAD, AUDA-NEPAD, 2022-01-04 08:23:49.
AUDA-NEPAD in partnership with the National Biosafety Authority (Autorité Nationale de Biosécurité (ANB) in Senegal organized an Information sharing meeting on the gene drive technology as a complementary tool for malaria vector control, from 22-23 December 2021, in Somone, Senegal. The key objective of the meeting was to discuss the opportunities offered by gene drive technology for malaria control, based on the current state of art of knowledge and experiences from countries that are testing this approach. Sixty people, including key stakeholders from relevant institutions in Senegal and experts from Burkina Faso and Mali took part in the meeting. In his opening remarks, Mr. Ousseynou Kassé, Executive Director of ANB thanked AUDA-NEPAD for the support provided in the organization of this meeting. He also thanked the experts from Burkina Faso and Mali who came to share their experiences on the subject. “We started the discussions on the Gene Drive approach some years ago at the COP-MOP meeting held in Mexico and we continued it in the past years in the sub-region. Recently we were in Accra twice to discuss the same topic ahead of the next COP-MOP meeting”, he said. Mr. Yero Dé, Chairperson of the Orientation Council of ANB, highlighted that the meeting seeks to improve stakeholders’ understanding of the gene drive technology as a novel malaria control approach. “We need to consider adopting this new approach through an open discussion on how this technology could be used in the health sector and in particular in malaria control and elimination. Malaria mortality rate is very high in most of our countries and the efforts deployed so far to control the disease face important challenges, including the resistance of the vector to the current treatments”, he further stated.
How sci-fi weapon could stop grey squirrels killing Britain’s trees
19723rymeradelle, INentertainment, 2021-12-23 12:41:06.
Grey squirrels pose the greatest threat to British foresters at the moment. They eat the bark of trees, leaving them to die. Picture: Grey squirrel perched on a tree It’s bad enough watching Britain’s ash trees wither from the ash dieback fungus now ravaging our countryside. We can only do so much. The squirrel is an exception to this rule. And it’s not just trees which are paying the price. This pest kills songbirds, and also pinches nests. Worse still, our native red squirrel, which once roamed the entire country — without chewing trees to death — is now an endangered species, clinging on in pockets of Scotland and places such as the Isle of Wight. The number of people living in the area is estimated to be around 200,000. Red Squirrel Survival Trust will make an announcement next month, with Red Squirrel Day on January 21. Its patron, the Prince of Wales, loves the vanishing red so much that he has a squirrel-feeding table in the hallway at Birkhall, his home on the Balmoral estate (where he has also erected ‘Squirrel Crossing’ road signs).
Scientists Used CRISPR Gene Editing to Choose the Sex of Mouse Pups
19906S. Fan, Singuarity Hub, 2021-12-23 08:37:01.
“Do you want a boy or a girl?” can be an awkward question.But in certain circles, it’s a question that’s asked every day. Take agriculture. In a perfect world, most cows would only birth females. Chicks would grow up to be all hens. “Sexing” a farm animal when they’re at a young age wouldn’t be a thing—especially when it means male animals, without the ability to produce milk or eggs, are often culled at a young age to preserve resources. There might be a better way. This month, a team tapped into the power of CRISPR to control the sex of the offspring in mice. By splicing CRISPR components into the parents’ genome, the team was able to flip on—or off—a switch that nearly perfectly determined the sex of their litters. Unlike previous attempts, the baby mice could go on to have litters of their own of both sexes. The targeted gene used for the edit is conserved across evolution, suggesting the technique could work in more animals than just mice. But it’s controversial. Essentially, the technique selectively kills off embryos of a certain sex, which immediately raises ethical red flags. For now, scientists aren’t concerned about the technology being used in humans due to its complexity. But the study is the latest to showcase biotech’s increasing ability to manipulate reproduction.
Driving the Self-Destruction of Malaria-Transmitting Mosquitos
19948H. Aliouche, News Medical Life Sciences, 2021-12-22 09:36:57.
Self-destruction of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes can be driven by gene drives deployed to manipulate natural populations. In particular, they can be used to reduce the number of individuals in a population or to modify their composition; this is particularly useful when such species are vectors of disease. The use of genetic engineering tools is becoming increasingly widespread and enables the deployment of natural and synthetic gene drivers that can propagate a particular subset of genetic expressions population through the biasing of Mendelian inheritance laws.
Gene Drives For Malaria Control And Elimination
19693Annonymous, Health Tech, 2021-12-16 19:01:30.
There is notable ongoing research and prioritization of gene drive technology in Africa for Malaria control and elimination. Currently, there is ongoing gene drive mosquito research in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Uganda led by the Target Malaria consortium. While laboratory research has demonstrated that gene drive techniques are effective in altering the Anopheles mosquito populations so that they can no longer transmit Malaria parasites and crashing entire mosquito populations, this research still has a long way to go in testing the effectiveness of gene drive mosquitoes in controlling Malaria. Initiated in 2018, Target Malaria’s work in Uganda is led by the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI). The work in Uganda is still in early stages, focusing on entomological mosquito collections from field sites on islands within Lake Victoria and mainland sites. In Burkina Faso, Target Malaria’s initiated exploratory gene drive research in in 2012, led by the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS) in Bobo-Dioulasso. In 2019, the team released genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes in Bana village. The mosquitoes were genetically-modified to be sterile, which means they died without any offspring. These were not gene drive mosquitoes, and their release was not to test these as a vector control tool.
Oxitec wraps mosquito trials for the season
19698T. O'Hara, Keynews.com, 2021-12-15 19:12:16.
The private bio-tech company Oxitec has wrapped up its test release of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys
How Israelis help the world fight mosquito-borne diseases
19690A. K. Leichman, ISRAEL21c, 2021-12-14 18:22:37.
Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs understand the problems and risks and have been developing a series of ingenious remedies to this growing problem. Prof. Philippos Aris Papathanos, head of Hebrew University’s Insect Genetics Lab, was awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to develop new genetic approaches for controlling malaria mosquito populations. “We’re building a modern variant of an old idea that has been around since the 1950s: to control mosquitoes by modifying and manipulating their genetics,” Papathanos tells ISRAEL21c. He explains that sterilizing and releasing individual male mosquitoes theoretically leads to the collapse of the population. But this tactic has proven difficult to upscale to the necessary level of a whole city, country or continent. Instead of sterilization, Papathanos’ lab is using cutting-edge CRISPR technology to modify male malaria mosquitoes’ Y chromosome so that they produce only male babies, and those sons inherit the altered chromosome. Over time, there will be no more females and hence no more disease-transmitting bites.“This method can suppress the population in a stronger way because the genes are designed to spread through the population. We don’t need to upscale if we make the system more efficient with the least number of insects released,” says Papathanos.
No, genetically engineered mosquitoes aren’t about to be released in Berkeley
19619K. D. Rauch, Berkeleyside, 2021-12-13 21:34:24.
Judith Pierce, public outreach coordinator for the Alameda County Mosquito Abatement District, would like to make one thing clear: A release of genetically engineered mosquitoes is not coming to Berkeley — or anywhere in Alameda County — in the near future. Not to her knowledge, anyway, and if it were official, she would know. The Berkeley City Council’s robust discussion of this at a council meeting in early November was based partially on misleading information, said Pierce.The council, at its Nov. 9 meeting, considered whether to send a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opposing a potential California pilot study of mosquitoes engineered to combat Zika, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and other diseases.Councilmember Ben Bartlett sponsored the item, sending out an email to constituents ahead of time urging them to take action to prevent the EPA from “releasing billions of genetically engineered mosquitoes across California, specifically in Alameda County.” The sample letter Bartlett presented to the council was focused statewide, but background information he shared, as well as discussion at the meeting, focused on keeping the mosquitoes out of the county.
Gene editing used to create all-male or all-female litters of mice
19542J. Goodyer, Science Focus, 2021-12-06 20:26:39.
As males are unable to produce milk or lay eggs, the ability to breed cows and hens that produce all-female litters is likely to be high on most poultry and dairy farmers’ wish lists. Now, scientists at the Francis Crick Institute and the University of Kent have come a step closer to realising this goal after successfully using CRISPR gene editing techniques to produce all-female or all-male litters of mice. The technique could also be used to improve animal welfare in areas of scientific research in which only male or only female animals are required for studies, the researchers say. To make the breakthrough the researchers took advantage of the fact that CRISPR consists of two parts – the Cas9 enzyme, which cuts the DNA and enables scientists to alter specific regions of genes, and the guide RNA, which carries the Cas9 enzyme to the desired region on the genome.
Gene editing used to create all-male or all-female mice litters
19502A. Reis, European Scientist, 2021-12-04 17:04:50.
Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and the University of Kent used gene-editing technologies to create male-only and female-only mice litters, according to a study published in Nature Communications (1). The authors also suggested ways in which this method could be used to improve animal welfare in scientific research and agriculture. There are many situations in research and agriculture where it would be desirable to have just females or just males. For example, reproductive studies require only animals of the gender being studied, while in farming, egg and milk production needs only female animals. Sadly, in many cases, the unwanted animals end up being culled. “This work could have an immediate and valuable impact in scientific laboratories, as we’ve shown how it is safe and effective in mice, a common mammal used in medical and scientific research. While a lot of research needs both sexes, there are areas of study where only one is needed. For example, when studying the reproductive system, sex-specific diseases, or certain hormones”, said James Turner, group leader of the Sex Chromosome Biology Laboratory at the Crick says:
Gene-editing used to create single sex mice litters
19504The Francis Crick Institute, Phys Org, 2021-12-03 17:09:04.
Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute, in collaboration with University of Kent, have used gene editing technology to create female-only and male-only mice litters with 100% efficiency. This proof of principle study, published in Nature Communications today, demonstrates how the technology could be used to improve animal welfare in scientific research and perhaps also agriculture. In scientific research and also farming, there is often a need for either male or female animals. For example, laboratory research into male or female reproduction requires only animals of the sex being studied. And in farming, only female animals are required for egg production and in dairy herds. This means it is common practice for animals of the unrequired sex to be culled after birth. The researchers' new method uses a two-part genetic system to inactivate embryos shortly after fertilisation, allowing only the desired sex to develop. Such a genetically-based method to control the sex of offspring could drastically reduce culling in both industries. The embryo selection is based on the fact that there are two elements of CRISPR-Cas9—the Cas9 enzyme that cuts the DNA, allowing scientists to alter specific regions, and the guide RNA which carries the Cas9 to the right location on the genome. The team placed one element of the system on the father's X or Y chromosome, meaning that it will only be inherited by female or male embryos respectively. The other element is contributed by the mother, and is inherited by all embryos.
Single-sex mice litters were created with 100% efficiency using gene editing.
19498R. Silman, Brinkwire, 2021-12-03 17:00:12.
The Francis Crick Institute, in partnership with the University of Kent, has employed gene editing technology to construct 100% efficient female-only and male-only mouse litters. This proof-of-concept study, which was published today (Friday, December 3rd, 2021) in Nature Communications, shows how the technique could be used to improve animal wellbeing in scientific research and possibly agriculture. Male and female animals are frequently required in scientific research and husbandry. Laboratory research into male or female reproduction, for example, necessitates only animals of the examined sex. In addition, only female animals are needed for egg production and dairy herds in farming. This means that animals of the unrequired sex are routinely culled after birth.
Scientists eye gene drive technology to combat malaria
19496S. Buguzi, Sci Dev Net, 2021-12-03 16:55:44.
Scientists are hoping that adoption of gene drive technology could reduce mosquito populations as they call for new innovations in the fight against malaria, a fatal disease widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the Africa region accounted for around 94 per cent of all global malaria cases and deaths in 2019. Over two-thirds of deaths were among children under the age of five. Gene drive technology — genetic engineering that modifies malaria mosquitoes so they can pass their genes on to large mosquito populations — could potentially contribute to malaria elimination in Africa, according to Krystal Birungi, a field entomology coordinator at the not-for-profit research consortium Target Malaria, Uganda. “There is a sense in which our best tools today are also our oldest, which implies that innovation needs to be scaled up.” Fredros Okumu, entomologist and director of science, Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania “It is a cost-effective way to cut down malaria vectors, and is simple to implement because the mosquitoes themselves do the work,” said Birungi during a Roll Back Malaria Partnership virtual boot camp on malaria control innovation on 15 November. Although the technology is not on the market, and is yet to gain public acceptance, if rolled out it could complement existing malaria interventions such as insecticide-treated nets and indoor residual spray, helping reduce malaria cases, according to Birungi.
Lab animals: Gene-editing technology is used to create female-only and male-only mice litters
19493todayuknews, Today UK News, 2021-12-03 16:50:32.
Single-sex litters of mice — comprising only either female or male pups — have been produced by means of so-called CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. The technique, developed by experts at the Francis Crick Institute and the University of Kent, works by inactivating embryos of one sex shortly after fertilisation. It could be used to improve animal welfare in both laboratory and agricultural settings where, for various reasons, only female or male animals are needed. It is common for animals of the unrequired sex to be culled — a practice which could be drastically reduced by controlling the sex of the animals prior to birth. As the technique requires the genetic modification of both parents to work, however, the approach would not be suitable for forcing the sex of designer babies. Single-sex litters of mice — comprising only either female or male pups — have been produced by means of so-called CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. Pictured: the mice that were bred to create single-sex litters. The black parts of their coat are caused by the genetically modified cells, while the white parts come from the non-modified parts of their genome
Gene editing produces all-male or all-female litters of mice
19491E. Pennisi, Science, 2021-12-03 16:41:41.
In some farmers’ ideal world, cows would birth only females, sows would bear no boars, and chicks would all grow up to be hens. Such sex ratios would stop them from killing millions of male animals, which don’t produce eggs or milk. Now, scientists are a step closer to this reality. Researchers have harnessed the gene editor CRISPR to produce litters of mice all of one sex. That’s a potential boon to agriculture and may offer a more immediate advantage in scientific research. “The paper shows a state-of-the-art solution to producing single-sex species,” with “impressive results,” says Ehud Qimron, a CRISPR expert at Tel Aviv University who was not involved with the work. The impact for lab animals may be huge. “In the past 5 years around 25,000 papers were published using mice in sex-specific research studies,” says study co-author James Turner, a molecular geneticist at the Francis Crick Institute. “If we could prevent the generation of the unstudied sex, the number [saved] would be in the hundreds of thousands.” Other methods exist to skew the male/female ratio of newborn animals. Scientists can sort sperm by the weight of the sex chromosome, or cause embryos of one sex to die before birth. In a study published 2 years ago, researchers using the gene editor CRISPR managed to produce altered mice in which four of five litters were all female.
Podcast: Malaria Gene Drive
19474S. Hartley, S. Neema and C. Opesen, University of Exeter Business School, 2021-11-25 15:15:30.
Professor Sarah Hartley and her two colleagues in Uganda, Stella Neema and Chris Opesen discuss gene drive research for malaria control. Funded by British Academy and Wellcome trust, their work is to understand the social science challenges around the development of this kind of technology and to consider how governance and ethics should be managed when dealing with a scientific breakthrough such as this.
Major phase of Florida Keys GMO mosquito release complete, company says
19393D. Goodhue, Miami Herald, 2021-11-23 17:29:49.
A British biotechnology company and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District on Tuesday announced they have “successfully concluded” a major phase in a controversial trial project aimed at wiping out an invasive species of mosquito known to spread dangerous diseases like dengue fever, Zika and chikungunya. In April, the company, Oxitec, placed up to 130 boxes, each filled with millions of genetically altered male Aedes aegypti mosquito larvae, in several locations in the Middle and Lower Keys — hoping they would fly away after hatching and breeding with the naturally occurring local females in the area. Scientists designed a “death mechanism” in the males meant to ensure no viable female offspring would result from the mating. The male offspring, according to Oxitec, will pass on a “self-limiting gene” to half of their young, with the goal of Aedes aegypti breeding themselves out of existence in the Keys, according to the company.
Science Has Given Us the Power to Undermine Nature’s Deadliest Creature: Should We Use It?
19304E. Herold, leaps.org, 2021-11-16 13:32:15.
British biotech company Oxitec has engineered male mosquitoes to have a genetic "kill-switch" that could potentially crash the local population of Aedes aegypti, at least in the short-term. The modified males that are being released are intended to mate with wild females. Males don't bite; it's the female that's deadly, always seeking out blood to gorge on to help mature her eggs. After settling her filament-thin legs on her prey, she sinks a needlelike proboscis into the skin and sucks the blood until her translucent belly is bloated and glowing red. The kill-switch will ensure that the female offspring die before they reach maturity and thus, be unable to reproduce. Should a small number of them survive, they will be rendered unable to bite. The genetic modification means the proboscis, the sickle-like needle that pierces the skin, won't form properly. The idea is that the lack of females for the males to mate with, over a few generations, will collapse the local population of Aedes aegypti. The modified mosquitoes are the second genetically engineered insect to be released in the U.S. by Oxitec. The first was a modified diamondback moth, an agricultural pest that doesn't bite humans. But with the mosquitoes, there are many questions about the long-term effects on wild ecosystems, other species in the food chain, and human health. With the Keys initiative, there has been vociferous opposition from environmental groups and some local residents, but some scientists and public health experts say that genetically modified insects pose less of a risk than the diseases they carry and the powerful, indiscriminant pesticides used to combat them.
The drone, the tool of the future to combat its spread
19234T. Thompson, Your Decommissioning News, 2021-11-09 22:01:19.
Drones could become a promising tool in the fight against the tiger mosquito, according to a study published Tuesday by French researchers. French researchers said on Tuesday that drones could, within a few years, integrate into the arsenal of the fight against the tiger mosquito, an invasive species that appeared on mainland France about fifteen years ago, revealing the results of an experiment conducted in Montpellier. The tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, now detected in 65 French departments, grows at 80% in individuals, mainly in standing water in gardens. It is more harmful because it stings constantly during the day and can transmit viral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya or Zika if it has been stung by a previous patient. Therefore the first preventive measure against this insect, whose reproduction is preferred by high temperatures, is to systematically empty and overturn containers that may contain water, such as a simple ashtray. But additional methods have emerged in recent years, including the so-called “sterile insect technique” (TIS), which consists of raising male mosquitoes in laboratories, sterilizing them, and then releasing them into the field, where wild females are sterilized. which will not have offspring.
Two years of laboratory studies on the non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes concluded successfully in Mali
19224M. Coulibaly, Target Malaria, 2021-11-09 21:44:38.
The Target Malaria Mali team at the Malaria Research and Training Centre (MRTC) based at the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB) is proud to have been the first Malian research team to work on non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes. The team has just published the results of the two years we spent studying these mosquitoes in our laboratory. Thanks to this research, we have gained new knowledge and developed cutting-edge skills in the areas of entomology, molecular biology and genetics, allowing us to sustain a colony containing both local and genetically modified mosquitoes. This research was made possible thanks to an authorisation from the Malian Ministry of Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development (MEADD) issued on 21 June 2019 to import a strain of non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes and study them in a contained environment. Initially designed at Imperial College London1, the genetically modified mosquitoes were then tested at Polo d’Innovazione di Genomica, Genetica e Biologia (PoloGGB) in Terni, Italy, before being transported to Mali. The mosquito eggs arrived by plane on 4 September 2019. They were kept in the insectarium renovated by the Target Malaria project.
Will freeing ourselves (forever) from mosquitoes soon be a realizable “dream”? Pros and cons of an epochal turning point – breaking latest news
19160Annonymous, Breaking Latest News, 2021-11-05 14:34:10.
Also true for a dangerous insect like the mosquito: due to the pathologies of which vector, such as the malaria, the dengue o la yellow fever, every year in the world about 800 thousand people die. There are therefore quite a few reasons to want to get rid of it, not just the itchy summer bites, and thanks to the technique developed by Professor Crisanti it would seem possible, in a not too distant future. It starts from a premise: Not that we want to get rid of all mosquitoes. There are around 3,500 species of mosquitoes and fortunately only a few transmit parasitic diseases such as malaria or others that cause diseases such as zika and dengue. So if I want to get rid of malaria I have to attack malaria. Traditionally this has been done with insecticides which have shown all their limits and dangers. These measures, which are apparently simple, require sustainability over time, require resources and political continuity. All this is missing today. Hence biotechnology, the idea of making mosquitoes themselves do this job. If we manage to modify the genetic characteristics of mosquitoes, we can theoretically create mosquitoes that do not reproduce or that do not transmit the infection.
New Zealand wants to get rid of stoats with genetic engineering
19157C. Weerasinghe, Cyber Layman, 2021-11-05 14:23:23.
The principle of the “gene drive” is to modify a specific gene in a group of specimens of a species and then let the gene spread throughout the population by inheritance, through reproduction. If, as in this case, the aim is to reduce the population of animals, for example, we can make sure that only males are born. New Zealand stoats are not the only animals on which the technique of “gene drive” is thought to be used: for example, there are similar plans for mosquitoes that transmit malaria. The first time the technique proved effective was in 2015, when it was tested on a population of fruit flies; then it was tested on some species of yeast, insects and mice (for which, however, the effectiveness of the technique has not yet been demonstrated), never on an animal as large as an ermine. New Zealand may be the first country to experience such a thing domestically.
Oxitec Announces Ground-breaking Commercial Launch of Its Friendly™ Aedes aegypti Solution in Brazil
19395Oxitec, COSION, 2021-11-03 17:40:43.
Oxitec, the leading developer of biological solutions to control pests, announced today the landmark commercial launch of its Friendly™ Aedes aegypti solution designed specifically for use by homeowners, businesses, and communities to control the dengue-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquito. This launch represents the first time globally that the benefits of using biologically engineered mosquito control technology that can be purchased directly by consumers. Having received full biosafety commercial approval in 2020 from the Brazilian government's biosafety authority, CTNBio, the company is making its just-add-water solution available for delivery directly to customers' doorsteps starting in the State of São Paulo. Available for purchase online, the product comprises durable outer boxes and Friendly™ male mosquito egg refill packs. Once delivered, customers need only to add water to the Friendly™ box, place it in a garden, patio, or around a home or business, and the boxes will produce Oxitec's non-biting male mosquitoes over time, which disperse to find and mate with invasive, biting Aedes aegypti females. Their female offspring cannot survive, which means fewer biting female mosquitoes in the following generations. While the Friendly™ Aedes aegypti males pursue and mate with female Aedes aegypti, customers need only reactivate the easy-to-use box once per month. This technology controls the pest without harming beneficial species like bees and butterflies and does not persist in the environment.
Fighting Dengue Virus with Biological Weapons
19130Z. Ebrahim, Inter Press Service, 2021-11-02 14:34:03.
For the last 11 years, he has been trying to convince both the provincial and central governments of making “billions of mosquitoes in labs”, which when released in the wild, could reduce the spread of dengue virus, but with little luck. The released genetically engineered male (only) mosquitoes, when they mate with Aedes females (also the carrier of the virus), would produce offspring that would die while still at larvae or pupae stage, explained Ali, the only Pakistani with a doctorate in genetically modified mosquitoes. In addition, genetic modifications, he said, can also shorten the life span, cause sterility and even death of the transformed Aedes species. However, those who can decide have dawdled for too long with the result that the virus has gone out of control, he remarked. He has been trying to draw attention but with little success. “They [government officials] tell me if word gets out the government was fighting the virus by letting loose even more mosquitoes, they will have to confront the wrath of the public!”
Wolbachia goes to work in the war on mosquitoes
19076S. Ong, Nature, 598:S32-s34. 2021-10-29 20:37:48.
There are two approaches to tackling dengue with Wolbachia. The first involves releasing only modified male mosquitoes. Since 2015, this strategy has been successfully adopted in Singapore and Guangzhou, China, and in parts of the United States, such as Miami, Texas and California. Because eggs produced from unmodified females that mate with modified males do not hatch, the number of mosquitoes in the community is greatly reduced. The second approach, used by some cities in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Australia, among others, involves releasing modified mosquitoes of both sexes. The infected females pass the bacteria to their offspring. Over time (several months to years, depending on characteristics of the release site), the modified mosquitoes replace the native population.
European Parliament adopts text on biodiversity, calls for no releases of gene drive organisms
19071Third World Network, TWN Biosafety Briefing, 2021-10-27 20:24:55.
Gene drive technologies, such as GM mosquitoes for the control of vector-borne diseases, pose serious and novel threats for the environment and nature, including irreversible changes to food chains and ecosystems, and losses of biodiversity, on which the world’s poorest depend for their livelihoods; therefore reiterates concern about the new legal, environmental, biosafety and governance challenges that might arise from the release of genetically engineered gene drive organisms into the environment, including for nature conservation purposes; reiterates that the free, prior and informed consent of IPLCs must be sought and obtained prior to the release of any technologies which may impact on their traditional knowledge, innovation, practices, livelihoods and use of land, resources and water; stresses that this must be done in a participatory manner involving all potentially affected communities prior to any deployment. Given that gene drive technologies raise concerns about the difficulties of predicting their behaviour, and that gene drive organisms could become invasive species; therefore considers that no releases of genetically engineered gene drive organisms should be permitted, including for nature conservation purposes, in line with the precautionary principle.
A Golden Menace
19202S. Moutinho, Science, 2021-10-21 14:46:14.
An even bigger catastrophe looms: the invasion of the Amazon and its tributaries, part of the largest drainage basin in South America, which spans eight countries and is one of the richest hot spots for biodiversity on the planet. Golden mussels have been documented in the Pantanal wetlands just 150 kilometers from the Téles Pires River, which flows into the Amazon basin and connects to the Tapajós River, a tributary of the Amazon.“It only takes one boat encrusted with the mussel to cross the wetlands for the invader to make a new home in an Amazon river,” says biologist Marcia Divina at the state-owned Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. If the invader spreads in the Amazon, it could wipe out native species that scientists have not even studied yet, she adds. “We can’t even calculate the size of the impact.”Despite a late and anemic government response, researchers funded largely by affected hydroelectric companies have developed new tools to track the mussels’ relentless advance. And some are looking to an aggressive form of genetic engineering to eradicate it. That untested strategy is still likely years from being ready to deploy, but scientists see few other ways to slow an invader so easily spread by human transit and trade.
Sterilizing Male Mosquitoes with Gene Editing to Reduce Disease Spread
18938Global Biodefense Staff, Global Biodefense, 2021-10-11 20:42:18.
Researchers at the Army’s Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies and the University of California Santa Barbara used a gene editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 to target a specific gene tied to fertility in male mosquitoes. Researchers experimented with the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are found in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discerned how a mutation can suppress the fertility of female mosquitoes. To manage populations, scientists use a vector-control practice called the sterile insect technique in which they raise a lot of sterile male insects and they then release these males in numbers that overwhelm their wild counterparts. Females that mate with sterile males before finding a fertile one are themselves rendered infertile, thereby decreasing the size of the next generation. Repeating this technique several times has the potential to crash the population because each generation is smaller than the last; releasing a similar number of sterile males has a stronger effect over time.
Fighting the world’s most deadly animal: the mosquito
19227M. Rozenbaum, Understanding Animal Research, 2021-10-09 21:50:46.
n the first, sterile male mosquitos are mass produced and released into the wild. These sterile males mate with wild females who then lay sterile eggs which will not hatch. This approach has been shown to reduce wild populations by as much as 90% in trials with Aedes aegypt. The second approach is to introduce a gene that, if inherited, results in the death of the female, but not the male. Genetically modified males are mass produced and released. Only male offspring from matings between the modified males and wild females survive. They go on to breed, further spreading the female-killing gene and reducing the overall mosquito population. Genetically modified mosquitoes have been successfully used in parts of Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama, and India to control Ae. aegypti mosquitoes. Since 2019, over one billion GM mosquitoes have been released. When genetically modified mosquitoes stop being released into an area, the Ae. aegypti mosquito population slowly returns to normal levels, so control requires regular release of modified mosquitos.
Trial suppresses mosquitoes using non-GMO approach
18863GM Watch, GM Watch, 2021-10-07 18:51:46.
In a first for the Southern Hemisphere, researchers have shown that a bacterium can successfully suppress populations of the invasive, disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito that is responsible for spreading dengue, yellow fever and Zika. Published in PNAS (see abstract below), the trial involved releasing three million male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Northern Queensland, sterilised with a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia, across three trial sites over a 20-week period during the summer of 2018. The sterile male insects search out and mate with wild females, preventing the production of offspring. Scientists returned the following year and found one of the trial sites, Mourilyan in Queensland, was almost devoid of mosquitoes.
Invasive, disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito sterilized with bacteria and eradicated in large-scale trial
18872CSIRO, Phys Org, 2021-10-05 19:15:01.
In a first for the Southern Hemisphere, researchers have shown a bacteria can successfully sterilize and eradicate the invasive, disease carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito which is responsible for spreading dengue, yellow fever and Zika. The breakthrough could support the suppression and potential eradication of Aedes aegypti worldwide. Published today in PNAS, the landmark trial involved releasing 3 million male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Northern Queensland sterilized with bacteria called Wolbachia. The trial was conducted across three sites over a 20-week period during the summer of 2018. The sterile male insects search out and mate with wild females, preventing the production of offspring.
Stakeholders call for adoption of emerging technologies to fight Malaria
18869C. Muchira, KBC, 2021-10-05 19:08:06.
Health stakeholders are calling for adoption of innovative and emerging technologies such as gene drive to change the focus of the war on malaria from just controlling its spread to actual elimination. The African Institute for Development Policy and other stakeholders have urged the government to allocate adequate resources to boost initiatives by institutions in fighting malaria and improve health.According to a 2020 World Health Organization report, in 2019, 229 million people were infected with Malaria in 87 malaria endemic countries. The African Region recorded an estimated 215 million cases in 2019 which accounted for about 94% of cases including Nigeria (27%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%), Uganda (5%), Mozambique (4%) and Niger (3%) accounted for about 51% of all cases globally. Although milestones have been made, the persisting high rates of illnesses and deaths have called for concerted efforts towards malaria elimination.
Plan for California’s Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Draws Fire
18813T. Baltz, Bloomberg Law, 2021-09-29 15:13:31.
A U.K.-based biotech company’s proposal to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in California as a disease-control measure is prompting criticism that the program could create unnatural consequences. Oxitec says it would unleash safe, non-biting male mosquitoes to reduce the population of mosquitoes that spread dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other diseases. It applied in August for an Environmental Protection Agency permit to release the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, for pilot projects in the state. Opponents say the company’s plan lacks rigorous assessments of potentially serious health and environmental impacts, and could have “disastrous consequences” in the U.S. and other countries. ...
