Gene Drive Technology in the News
Genetically Engineered Mosquito Imminent Mass Release Ignores Science, Public Health and Environmental Risks
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, North America, Oxitec, Regulation, Sterile insect technique (SIT)H. Bourque, Friends of the Earth, 2022.
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 ...
GMO mosquitoes set for release in California to quell disease
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, North America, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)M. Renda, Courthouse News Service, 2022.
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 ...
New tech fights fall armyworm by letting offspring die
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Moths, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)V. Ouma, Sci Dev Net, 2022.
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 ...
Should we kill every mosquito on Earth?
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, RegulationJ. Phelan, LiveScience, 2022.
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 ...
A UC malaria initiative program receives grant for work researching genetically engineered mosquitoes
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population modification/replacementS. Slater, The California Aggie, 2022.
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 ...
First ever gene-edited ticks offer new weapons against Lyme disease
Tags: Gene editing, Genetic biocontrol, Other arthropodsN. Lavars, New Atlas, 2022.
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 ...
Could Crispr Flip the Switch on Insects’ Resistance to Pesticides?
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, ResistanceE. Mullin, WIRED, 2022.
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, ...
Gene Editing Is Popular, But Controversial, Research Are
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, PolicyRelias, RELIAS MEDIA, 2022.
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 ...
Crisp Genes
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, MosquitoesJ. Mckenna, The Simple Science, 2022.
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, ...
Scientists find transmission chain-breaker, give new hope for fight against malaria
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population modification/replacementANI, ANI, 2022.
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 ...
Track New Zealand’s Bid to Take Back Nature
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Invasive species, Oceania, Other mammalsK. Peek, Scientific American, 2022.
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 ...
Could we delete diseases passed down through our DNA?
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, RodentsE. Rayne, SYFY, 2022.
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 ...
Gene drives and metaphors
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Stakeholder engagementB. Nerlich, Making Science Public, 2022.
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 ...
CRISPR Technology Can Eliminate Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes
Tags: Arbovirus, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, MosquitoesS. Krishana, Now, 2022.
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 ...
Genetic Strategy Reverses Insecticide Resistance
Tags: Fruit fly, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Mosquitoes, ResistanceH. Tasoff, The Current, 2022.
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 ...
Nuclear technique cuts mosquito numbers in Cuban trial
Tags: Mosquitoes, Sterile insect technique (SIT)M. A. Madsen, IAEA, 2022.
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 ...
Scientists expand CRISPR-Cas9 genetic inheritance control in mammals
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, RodentsM. Aguilera, Phys Org, 2022.
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 ...
Information Sharing in Senegal on the Gene Drive Technology as a potential Complementary Tool for Malaria Vector Control
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Mosquitoes, Policy, Regulation, Risk assessment, Stakeholder engagementAUDA-NEPAD, AUDA-NEPAD, 2022.
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, ...
How sci-fi weapon could stop grey squirrels killing Britain’s trees
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, Rodentsrymeradelle, INentertainment, 2021.
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. ...
Scientists Used CRISPR Gene Editing to Choose the Sex of Mouse Pups
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Rodents, Sex distorterS. Fan, Singuarity Hub, 2021.
“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 ...
Driving the Self-Destruction of Malaria-Transmitting Mosquitos
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, MosquitoesH. Aliouche, News Medical Life Sciences, 2021.
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 ...
Gene Drives For Malaria Control And Elimination
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Target malariaAnnonymous, Health Tech, 2021.
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 ...
Oxitec wraps mosquito trials for the season
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, North America, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)T. O'Hara, Keynews.com, 2021.
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
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Mosquitoes, Sterile insect technique (SIT)A. K. Leichman, ISRAEL21c, 2021.
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 ...
No, genetically engineered mosquitoes aren’t about to be released in Berkeley
Tags: Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoes, North America, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)K. D. Rauch, Berkeleyside, 2021.
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 ...
Gene editing used to create all-male or all-female litters of mice
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distorterJ. Goodyer, Science Focus, 2021.
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 ...
Gene editing used to create all-male or all-female mice litters
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distorterA. Reis, European Scientist, 2021.
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 ...
Gene-editing used to create single sex mice litters
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distorterThe Francis Crick Institute, Phys Org, 2021.
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 ...
Single-sex mice litters were created with 100% efficiency using gene editing.
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distorterR. Silman, Brinkwire, 2021.
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 ...
Scientists eye gene drive technology to combat malaria
Tags: Africa, Gene drive synthetic, MalariaS. Buguzi, Sci Dev Net, 2021.
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 ...
Lab animals: Gene-editing technology is used to create female-only and male-only mice litters
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distortertodayuknews, Today UK News, 2021.
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 ...
Gene editing produces all-male or all-female litters of mice
Tags: CRISPR, Gene drive synthetic, Rodents, Sex distorterE. Pennisi, Science, 2021.
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 ...
Podcast: Malaria Gene Drive
Tags: Ethics, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Policy, Stakeholder engagementS. Hartley, S. Neema and C. Opesen, University of Exeter Business School, 2021.
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 ...
Major phase of Florida Keys GMO mosquito release complete, company says
Tags: Aedes, North America, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)D. Goodhue, Miami Herald, 2021.
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 ...
Science Has Given Us the Power to Undermine Nature’s Deadliest Creature: Should We Use It?
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, North America, OxitecE. Herold, leaps.org, 2021.
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 ...
The drone, the tool of the future to combat its spread
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Sterile insect technique (SIT)T. Thompson, Your Decommissioning News, 2021.
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 ...
Two years of laboratory studies on the non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes concluded successfully in Mali
Tags: Anopheles, Gene drive synthetic, Malaria, Population suppression, Target malariaM. Coulibaly, Target Malaria, 2021.
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 ...
Will freeing ourselves (forever) from mosquitoes soon be a realizable “dream”? Pros and cons of an epochal turning point – breaking latest news
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Genetic biocontrol, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Population suppressionAnnonymous, Breaking Latest News, 2021.
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 ...
New Zealand wants to get rid of stoats with genetic engineering
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, OceaniaC. Weerasinghe, Cyber Layman, 2021.
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, ...
Oxitec Announces Ground-breaking Commercial Launch of Its Friendly™ Aedes aegypti Solution in Brazil
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, South/Central America, Sterile insect technique (SIT)Oxitec, COSION, 2021.
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 ...
Fighting Dengue Virus with Biological Weapons
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoesZ. Ebrahim, Inter Press Service, 2021.
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 ...
Wolbachia goes to work in the war on mosquitoes
Tags: Aedes, Dengue, WolbachiaS. Ong, Nature, 598:S32-s34. 2021.
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 ...
European Parliament adopts text on biodiversity, calls for no releases of gene drive organisms
Tags: Gene drive synthetic, Policy, RegulationThird World Network, TWN Biosafety Briefing, 2021.
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 ...
A Golden Menace
Tags: Biodiversity/Conservation, Gene drive synthetic, Invasive species, South/Central AmericaS. Moutinho, Science, 2021.
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 ...
Sterilizing Male Mosquitoes with Gene Editing to Reduce Disease Spread
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Genetically modified mosquitoesGlobal Biodefense Staff, Global Biodefense, 2021.
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 ...
Fighting the world’s most deadly animal: the mosquito
Tags: Dengue, Genetically modified mosquitoes, MalariaM. Rozenbaum, Understanding Animal Research, 2021.
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 ...
Trial suppresses mosquitoes using non-GMO approach
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Incompatible insect technique, OceaniaGM Watch, GM Watch, 2021.
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), ...
Invasive, disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito sterilized with bacteria and eradicated in large-scale trial
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Incompatible insect technique, OceaniaCSIRO, Phys Org, 2021.
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 ...
Stakeholders call for adoption of emerging technologies to fight Malaria
Tags: Africa, Genetically modified mosquitoes, MalariaC. Muchira, KBC, 2021.
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 ...
Plan for California’s Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Draws Fire
Tags: Aedes, Genetic biocontrol, Oxitec, Sterile insect technique (SIT)T. Baltz, Bloomberg Law, 2021.
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 ...
