Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats — better known as CRISPR, the new genome editing tool — continues to prove its crucial role in medical advances. Scientists believe they can use the technique to not only make malaria-proof mosquitoes, but eliminate their Zika-carrying cousins.
Scientists refer to the process as gene drive. While genes normally have a 50-50 chance of being inherited, gene drive biases that inheritance, allowing scientists to genetically modify an organism to have a specific trait it will pass down to all of its offspring. The process only works in certain types of fast-producing species, but entire populations could be affected in only a few generations.
Gene drives are already moving from concept to reality. A lab in California recently hatched mosquitoes that spread a malaria-blocking gene every time they reproduce. Researchers see further potential to eliminate populations of the mosquitoes that spread Zika virus and dengue fever by making the insects sterile.
In spite of these developments, government advisors say much more research is needed to understand the ecological and social consequences of gene drives and their ability to spread genetic changes through populations of insects, animals or plants faster than nature.
"This approach to potential irreversible modification of the genome of an entire species is breathtaking," said Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of NIH. He believes the call for cautious research "seems to strike the right balance, given both the exciting potential of this technology and uncertainty about its ecological impact," he added.
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