Great potential, but what are the possible downsides?

>>A new genetic technology bankrolled by the United States military has the potential to wipe out feral mice and malaria — but scientists are treading carefully, warning it could have unintended consequences.<<

>>CRISPR is a new genetic engineering technique that allows scientists to modify, delete or insert genes into organisms more easily and accurately than was previously possible.<<

>>A gene drive is a genetic mechanism that skews the odds in favour of a specific gene being passed onto subsequent generations, in a way that allows it to spread preferentially across a species.

Gene drives occur naturally, but Professor Esvelt, who heads up the Sculpting Evolution Group at MIT’s Media Lab, has come up with a recipe for building synthetic gene drives.

The technology could allow scientists to select certain genes to propagate in wild populations of animals to render them infertile or unviable.

“That’s a very useful tool for controlling and eradicating invasive pest species”, said Professor Paul Thomas, a geneticist from the University of Adelaide.

For example, researchers are developing gene drives that could carry a gene resistant to malaria into mosquito populations prone to the deadly parasite.

“To date, gene drives have only been demonstrated to work in insects — mosquitos and fruit flies — and also in yeast,” Professor Thomas said.

But that looks set to change.<<

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-24/gene-drives-feral-science-or-feral-solution/9896452

PermeateFree said:

Great potential, but what are the possible downsides?

>>A new genetic technology bankrolled by the United States military has the potential to wipe out feral mice and malaria — but scientists are treading carefully, warning it could have unintended consequences.<<

>>CRISPR is a new genetic engineering technique that allows scientists to modify, delete or insert genes into organisms more easily and accurately than was previously possible.<<

>>A gene drive is a genetic mechanism that skews the odds in favour of a specific gene being passed onto subsequent generations, in a way that allows it to spread preferentially across a species.

Gene drives occur naturally, but Professor Esvelt, who heads up the Sculpting Evolution Group at MIT’s Media Lab, has come up with a recipe for building synthetic gene drives.

The technology could allow scientists to select certain genes to propagate in wild populations of animals to render them infertile or unviable.

“That’s a very useful tool for controlling and eradicating invasive pest species”, said Professor Paul Thomas, a geneticist from the University of Adelaide.

For example, researchers are developing gene drives that could carry a gene resistant to malaria into mosquito populations prone to the deadly parasite.

“To date, gene drives have only been demonstrated to work in insects — mosquitos and fruit flies — and also in yeast,” Professor Thomas said.

But that looks set to change.<<

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-24/gene-drives-feral-science-or-feral-solution/9896452

There should be tee-shirt slogan.
I Love CRISPR

> A gene drive is a genetic mechanism that skews the odds in favour of a specific gene being passed onto subsequent generations, in a way that allows it to spread preferentially across a species. The concept does not appear anywhere in science fiction — now it looks like we can do it.”

It’s been done – accidentally – in Australia. In order to track yabbies, a harmless (natural) gene was inserted into the genome that changed the colour from red to blue. The researchers hadn’t taken into account that the blue colouration would spread preferentially through the species.

> The technology could allow scientists to select certain genes to propagate in wild populations of animals to render them infertile or unviable.

On a small scale such as an island, OK, but over time the gene would wipe itself out. The animals themselves may be smart enough to develop immunity, by avoiding mating with those who have the gene.

>>The most revolutionary technology in medicine today, and perhaps science in general, is CRISPR. CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a technology allowing scientists to edit genes in living cells.

It holds vast applications, from curing genetic diseases, detecting and treating cancers, treating HIV by blocking replication in human cells, bioengineering new crops and plants, eliminating malaria, to editing DNA in live human embryos.

In fact, all the items just listed have already been accomplished successfully in one form or another by CRISPR, with even more impressive feats in the pipeline.

Last year, human T-cells engineered with CRISPR by biotech companies Juno Therapeutics and Kite Pharmaceuticals induced remission in terminal leukemias. At Temple University, researchers eliminated HIV-1 from T cells in cultures with CRISPR.

At the University of Wisconsin, a CRISPR antibiotic is being developed to selectively target super-resistant bugs. In the UK, researchers used CRISR gene editing to eliminate malaria in new mosquito strains. And last year Chinese scientists corrected lethal mutations in 3 human embryos.

Dr. Eric Lander of the Broad Institute at MIT, one of the nation’s foremost medical researchers, said recently on 60 minutes, “CRISPR could easily be the most important scientific discovery of the century.”<<

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2018/06/25/how-crispr-gene-editing-is-revolutionizing-medicine-and-the-companies-who-invest-in-it/#171d63456f46