Question 1

Could population suppression gene drive approaches intended to confer sterility in mosquitoes also cause sterility in other animals?

Stephanie James · Accepted Answer

This would require that the engineered gene drive construct enter and be functional within germline cells of an unrelated species. It is expected that case-specific risk assessment will find this possibility to be highly improbable because it would require a series of extremely unlikely events to occur. Nevertheless, the possibility of such “horizontal transfer” or “horizontal gene flow” should be considered in case-specific risk assessment (see examples below).

For more information:

https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-021-03674-6

https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP151689&dsid=DS2

Question 2

Could population suppression gene drive approaches intended to confer sterility in mosquitoes also cause sterility in other animals?

Stephanie James · Accepted Answer

This would require that the engineered gene drive construct enter and be functional within germline cells of an unrelated species. It is expected that case-specific risk assessment will find this possibility to be highly improbable because it would require a series of extremely unlikely events to occur. Nevertheless, the possibility of such “horizontal transfer” or “horizontal gene flow” should be considered in case-specific risk assessment (see examples below).

For more information:

https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-021-03674-6

https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP151689&dsid=DS2

Question 3

Could population suppression gene drive approaches intended to confer sterility in mosquitoes also cause sterility in other animals?

Stephanie James · Accepted Answer

This would require that the engineered gene drive construct enter and be functional within germline cells of an unrelated species. It is expected that case-specific risk assessment will find this possibility to be highly improbable because it would require a series of extremely unlikely events to occur. Nevertheless, the possibility of such “horizontal transfer” or “horizontal gene flow” should be considered in case-specific risk assessment (see examples below).

For more information:

https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-021-03674-6

https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP151689&dsid=DS2