- Researchers have rendered a population of mosquitoes in a lab sterile using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 by homing in on a specific target in insect DNA -- the doublesex gene -- raising the possibility of eradicating disease-carrying species of the insect entirely https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4245 7 comments science
- Scientists were able to crash caged populations of the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles gambiae in only 7-11 generations. This is the first time experiments have been able to completely block the reproductive capacity of a complex organism in the laboratory using a designer molecular approach https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4245 4 comments science
Linking pages
- The CRISPR machines that can wipe out entire species - CNET https://www.cnet.com/news/the-crispr-machines-that-can-wipe-out-entire-species/ 117 comments
- Gene editing wipes out mosquitoes in the lab - BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45628905 85 comments
- The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We? - The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html 59 comments
- In lab tests, this gene drive wiped out a population of mosquitoes https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wiped-out-population-mosquitoes 8 comments