The sci-fi technology tackling malarial mosquitos:
While standard GM [genetic modification] introduces a new, lab-tweaked gene into a organism, gene drive technology goes one stage further. It introduces a gene drive - a lab-created gene that can also automatically replicate itself - that targets and removes a specific natural gene.
[...] Gene drives are created by adding something called Crispr, a programmable DNA sequence, to a gene. This tells it to target the natural version of itself in the DNA of the other parent in the new embryo. The gene drive also contains an enzyme that does the actual cutting.
[...] This process is more effective than standard DNA because as every single offspring has the introduced gene trait it spreads much faster and further.
Yet, campaigners like Liz O'Neill say that the risks of unforeseen consequences, such as the gene drive leading to harmful and unforeseen mutations and knock-on effects, are too high.
"Gene drives are GM on steroids supercharged," she says. "Every concern one would have about the use of any genetic modification is exponentially more worrying when talking about gene drives because of how far and wide they are designed to spread."
However, while the technology has not yet been authorised for use in the wild, there are no bans against continuing laboratory research into it. After serious debate in 2018, the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity ruled that this may continue.
"Innovative approaches are urgently needed as both the malaria mosquito and the malaria parasite are becoming increasingly resistant to current methods. Gene drive approaches could be part of an integrated approach to combat malaria, complementing existing interventions."
[...] "Given the potential for gene drives to alter entire wild populations and therefore ecosystems, the development of this technology must include robust safeguards and methods of control," he [Kevin Esvelt] says.
Prof Esvelt adds that this technology is being provided by something called "daisy chain". This is where a gene drive is designed to become inert after a few generations. Or halving its spread every generation until it eventually stops.
Using this technology he says it is possible to control and isolate the spread of gene drives.
"A town could release GM organisms with its boundaries to alter the local population [of a particular organism] while minimally affecting the town next door," he says.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:10AM
Let us take a moment and ponder a bit about this ... let's say approach.
Sci-fi, it said, eh? I too read some sci-fis in my days. I wonder... Hm... What could possibly...
Hm...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:22AM (8 children)
The genes are designed to be destructive, and evolution is very good at getting rid of, or at least blocking the effects of, these sorts of genes.
The irrational paranoia around genetic engineering is the flip side of unjustified optimism about its capabilities. Want to make a crop resistant to some disease? You can probably do that. Want to create a magic gene that drives its carrier species to extinction? Not going to happen.
(Score: 2) by hopdevil on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:56AM (4 children)
Gene drives are a little different than what you would typically find in nature. Evolution would have a hard time with this. I'm not an expert in genetics, but the way these things supposedly work, I could believe they certainly eliminate a local population and even spread beyond.
I won't miss mosquitos.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:08AM (3 children)
I am rather apprehensive with the modern genetic engineering, even though we have been doing it in various old-fashioned ways for milenia like cross breeding.
Nevertheless, I am all for mosquito genocide. Some say, it will only bring something worse. Something worse than mosquito? I, for one, will take the chance.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday May 26 2022, @11:57AM (2 children)
Hold my beer, eh?
The simple fact of mosquitoes being so wide-spread and old (as a species) shows that they fulfill a quite essential nice in this little spaceship called earth. Off the cuff okay'ing of their genocide is likely to be a whole lot worse than casually nuking both Washington DC and New York City.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:20PM
Not all mosquito species bite humans or spread disease. In fact, one species is responsible for most mosquito-borne illness in the world. Wipe that one out and there are still plenty of other species to fill their niche.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday May 27 2022, @12:41AM
Mosquitoes, like them (well, who does?) or not, do provide several essential functions in nature. They are a food source for waterfowl, fish and other creatures. They are a pollinator of flowers (in lieu of blood mosquitoes eat nectar). I'm sure they have other uses. One thing you can count on, suddenly removing them from ecosystems will have farther reaching effects than anticipated, and we likely won't like all of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:24AM
Evolution is only a locally-maximizing algorithm. Trap the population the wrong local maximum and there is no possible path that evolution can take to get out. The real trick is finding that local maximum.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday May 26 2022, @11:49AM (1 child)
Define 'irrational paranoia around genetic engineering', so that we can have a decent basis for arguing back and forth.
There are good reasons to be against genetic engineering too. It might help if you think about the whole copyright debate in parallel.
Imagine that you're Monsanto (now Bayer) and you've genetically manipuleered a grain species to have a two-fold increase in yield. All modern grain farmers will be forced to use your product, or go out of business in the short to medium term. You (Monsanto) earn a nice profit, the farmers who use your modified grain will probably earn the same profit as before, but farming as a whole will loose all the grain species with a lesser production. While that might not be a problem short-term, it is almost guaranteed to be a long-term problem.
Why 'guaranteed', and why 'almost'? There's a central concept in biology called Gibbs free energy. Freely translated, it comes down to a structural unit like a cell or an organism having a fixed enery budget. Anything you take from that budget has to come from somewhere else i.e. if you double the rate of protein synthesis in order to double your yield, that energy is taken away from another system in the cell. However, you don't know which cell subsystem you're taking energy away from, as you do not understand how a cell functions.
As an example of our lack of knowledge, think about the expression of genes. It is not because a gene is present (part of the genotype) that it is being expressed (fenotype). Frankly, we do not have a clue how the whole expression mechanism works.
About 98% of our DNA is considered junk DNA: it doesn't seem to code for anything, and the major hypothesis in the 90s was that it was some remnant of evolution: once functional genes that had become disfunctional but for which the cell had not found a mechanism to shed them.
It's only since about 2015 that researchers managed to visualize the [change in] 3D structure of the DNA inside the cell core, with tantalizing clues that that [change in] 3D structure is essential to the expression of a gen (or more precise: group of genes). We have no clue however, how that 3 dimensional change is being directed, what triggers it nor how the required change is signalled to the cell core.
If you want to have another basic example about our lack of knowledge about the things companies like Monsanto tinker with, but on a higher -- organism -- level: last I checked, there are about 7 different hypotheses about how a root detects gravity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:27PM
I mean the irrational paranoia. Things like worrying that we will accidentally create a disease that wipes out humanity, or that there's some ineffable "unhealthiness" around genetically modified foods so that they have to have warning labels on them. Sometimes they go further and claim false links to real diseases, just like claiming vaccines cause autism.
Your example is a rational concern, but it isn't really about genetic engineering. The same thing happens in all farming based on monoculture, which is of course the most profitable kind of farming.
Example : bananas. Used to be, everyone ate a kind of banana called the Gros Michel ("Big Mike"). Then there was a disease that nearly wiped out this kind of banana. So everyone switched to a new kind of banana called the Cavendish, which isn't as good, but is resistant to the disease. Now there's a new disease that attacks the Cavendish banana. Banana farmers don't really know what to do. There's a concern that bananas might become unusable as a cash crop and disappear from grocery stores. All without any genetic engineering.
Of course, you could always engineer the Gros Michel to be resistant, and get better bananas than we have now...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:16AM (3 children)
I was hoping for a laser array that kills all mosquitoes in a 10 meter radius instantly. Right next to the grill.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:04AM (2 children)
Doesn't this already exist?
There was a lot of hype around this and some crazy demo videos back in about 2015...
Hasn't anyone perfected this concept and brought it to market yet?
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Thursday May 26 2022, @10:14AM (1 child)
Mosquito Nukem Forever is planned for release next year.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 26 2022, @02:07PM
Depending on the price, it could be an interesting game.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @06:06PM
oh good! i hope them mosquitoes join them doodoos.
alas, giving me sugar only to later give me vinegar :( "oh, look! we saved the world from mosquitoes and it was good. now we're going to use it everywhere!)
i doubt they're going to infrastructure this ONLY for mosquitoes... especially since the lab is prolly located in a mosquito free place.
show us the REAL roadmap already!