GMO mosquitoes

 Fighting infectious diseases is hard. Our toolkit includes drugs and vaccines. But there's an arms race between the bugs and the drugs (and with COVID-19 and flu, the vaccines).

In some diseases, the transmission requires an insect or mammalian vector. Recent advances in genome editing have enabled so-called "gene drives" that are, in principle, capable of driving to extinction a host species, at least in a region of the planet.
Gene drives to extinguish the anopheles and aedes mosquito vectors for malaria, yellow fever, zika and others have been in development for years, and now one has been released in Florida. From the link:
"The genetically engineered males carry a gene
that passes to their offspring and kills female
progeny in early larval stages. Male offspring
won’t die, but instead will become carriers of
the gene and pass it to future generations. As
more females die, the A. aegypti population
should dwindle."
The decision to release a GMO animal is certainly fraught with ethical complications. Unlike plants, mosquitoes aren't sessile organisms and can cross international borders. https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-01186-6/d41586-021-01186-6.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2kayHheoVvGhRBdqxohPC0OzQTkOmTAJUvklbYbz85tm1rQrAs5tz6ehw

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two sides

Image
  Yes, there are two sides to every question. In most cases, there is a correct side and a wrong side. In the case of Kamala Harris, the correct side is that she was born a US citizen. The wrong side is that her parents had to be citizens or permanent residents for her to be a citizen. President Trump pretended to be unsure about this, just as he pretended for five years that Barack Obama is not a citizen. In the case of the Harris noncitizen claim, it is backed by the racist C laremont Institute: "The Claremont Institute masquerades as an intellectual salon of the right, but it is really just a racist fever swamp with deep connections to the conspiratorial alt-right. It even granted a fellowship to Jack Posobiec, who helped promote the notorious Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Claremont’s resident bigots offer deranged fantasies of violently expelling Americans from their home country because of their ethnic backgrounds. Their work deserves the intellectual weight given to that of D
Read more

Is Joe Biden too old?

The current meme about Joe Biden is that he's too old. Well, yes, he is old. But he seems to be functioning as an active president just fine. And the only other choice at this point is the GOP candidate for the Democratic nomination, RFK Jr. Before we throw away the incumbent advantage, we need to have a strong alternative. There is none. Trump is old, too. He's only three years younger, which is statistically insignificant. And while Joe walks or bikes, Trump rides a golf cart. Joe is trim, Trump is obese. And Trump has over 90 indictments, while after >40 years in elective office, Joe has none. Trump will be spending much of the GOP campaign season in court, although the Trumpenproletariat will still make him the nominee. Joe will fight this election based on his vision for the future. Trump will fight the election based on his vision for revenge for 2020. I'll be thinking of my child and grandchild. YMMV.
Read more

My 9/11 memorial

Today, several folks have posted 9/11 remembrances on FB. I’m fine with that. We should remember the people who died as a result of the plane crashes, as well as their families and friends. But don’t stop there. Also remember how this tragedy was cynically exploited for political purposes by folks like Rudy Giuliani and George Bush. How it was dishonestly used to justify the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq*, the torture and abuse of innocent Afghanis, and the continued incarceration without trials of men at the US military base in Guantanamo. Americans are rightly outraged by the 9/11 terrorism. But we should also be outraged at the atrocities committed by America in the name of the victims of 9/11. We should work to make sure another 9/11 never happens, and we should work to make sure our emotions are never again hijacked for political and financial profit. *15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, a US ally. Zero were from Iraq. Thousands of Americans were killed o
Read more