SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the back-to-the-blood-drawing-board dept.
Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
Plan to Crush Native Mosquito Population With Gene-Edited Strain Fails
Even the best laid plans can go awry—and one public health initiative in Brazil is a case in point. The project in question involved releasing an army of gene-edited mosquitoes into the wild in order to stop the spread of vector-borne diseases, from yellow fever and dengue to the Zika virus. But instead of depleting the population, the experiment may have made the mosquitoes even stronger.
It was thought that by short-circuiting certain parts of the insect's DNA, researchers could squash the target population's size without affecting its genetics. This is a plan being put to the test in various regions plagued by the disease-riddled bugs—apparently with varying levels of success.
In the case in Brazil, researchers edited strains of Aedes aegypti with a defective gene to limit their fertility—or at the very least ensure any offspring produced would be too weak to progress into adulthood and reproduce themselves. According to researchers writing in Scientific Reports, this particular strain (OX513A) has previously resulted in declines of native Ae. aegypti by 85 percent.
And so, in the largest project of its kind to date, approximately 450,000 male Ae. aegypti OX513A were released every week, starting from June 2013 and ending in September 2015. This weekly event took place at sites across the city of Jacobina in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Theoretically—and if things had gone to plan—levels of disease-carrying mosquitoes in the area should have plummeted afterwards. This was not the case.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:57AM (3 children)
Jurassic Park didn't say it very well, but we are screwing around with shit that we don't understand well. The big lack is that we don't appreciate how powerful and dangerous genetics could be.
In the early 20th century, it was scary how casual we were with radioactive material. Lot of medical quackery was built around the supposed healing powers of ionizing radiation. Even respectable medicine threw radioactive material around way too much. Why use simple heat to cauterize when you can use radioactive heat? That's the kind of crap that was done in the 1920s and 1930s, before the dangers of radiation became generally known.
We're still using all kinds of novel materials for which we have deliberately kidded ourselves about the dangers. Bisphenol A, for instance. And in one case, lead, the material is most definitely not novel. We know lead is unhealthy, have known that for centuries, but somehow we're still crazy enough to use it in our plumbing.
And now, we're doing it again, with genetics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @08:38AM (2 children)
Jurassic Park has about as much to do with actual genetics as Star Trek does with actual space exploration. Movies aren't evidence.
Shall I point out that ionizing radiation is in fact an extremely important tool in medicine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01 2019, @12:29PM
"Artists use lies to tell the truth"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 01 2019, @02:14PM
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." - Prov 16:18
There's nothing wrong with having some caution when monkeying with genetics that can self reproduce.
Imagine if Windows 3.1 could self reproduce. Ooops, I've got a bug, I'll just fix it here and release it to see if that fix works. Oh, that didn't work, well I can compile another fix and release that to see what happens.
If God wanted us to do genetic engineering, software or politics he would have given our species brains.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.