CRISPR gene editing and Lyme disease

There's a lot of interest in using CRISPR gene editing technology to cure inherited diseases in humans and to engineer crops and animals for more abundant food. Less often discussed is pest management and infectious disease.

In the latter category is a recent proposal to release CRISPRed mice engineered to be resistant to Borrelia burgdorferi, the etiological agent for Lyme disease. Ticks don't cause Lyme disease, but they can carry the Lyme disease bacterium after a blood meal from an infected mouse and then transfer it to humans with a later bite. If resistant mice displace the natural mouse population, they could interrupt the natural life cycle of B. burgdorferi.

Back in 2021, I published an article on the ethics of CRISPR gene editing in which I discussed the ethical considerations of releasing engineered disease vectors such as mosquitos as an alternative to insecticides to control, e.g., malaria and yellow fever. The same considerations apply to these CRISPRed mice--once they are released, we can't call them back. Human history is replete with examples of well-intended environmental manipulations with unintended consequences (see, e.g., cane toads to eliminate cane beetles in Australia).

It's easy to see how people living on or visiting Nantucket would benefit from the elimination of Lyme disease, and I can't enumerate any specific downsides to the release of these mice on the island, but experience teaches us that these mice will eventually find their way to the mainland, so it's not just Nantucket that has a stake in this brave new world. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/21/science/an-effort-curb-lyme-disease-scientists-hope-release-thousands-genetically-altered-mice-nantucket/