Of all the articles on genetic engineering that i have posted here, this is the most disturbing.
Will Trump's drive to deregulate allow this technology to be applied without restraint, the only objective being to make money from it?--Tom M.
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]>
To: CONS-SPST-BIOTECH-FORUM <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Fri, Dec 15, 2017 12:57 pm
Subject: Playing God: Are we prepared to use gene drive technology?
https://www.producer.com/2017/12/playing-god-prepared-use-gene-drive-technology/#.WjOxcOF9xTI.twitter
Playing God: Are we prepared to use gene drive technology?
The Western Producer, 12/14/17, By Robert Arnason
EDITED
New biotech advancement allows scientists to reduce and even eradicate certain species, such as weeds or disease-causing insects, prompting a significant environmental debate.
* It’s a technology with incredible potential and tremendous risks
* It could also have tragic consequences for bats and birds.
* It could have unpredictable impacts on entire ecosystems.
The technology is called gene drive. Gene drive, in basic terms, is a tool to spread a genetic alteration into a wild population of a certain species.
“It is arguably the genetic technology with more social, ethical and policy implications than any other to emerge in the last decade,” Sally Otto, a University of British Columbia zoologist, wrote on the Royal Society of Canada website.
A U.S. National Academy of Sciences report said that in 2015 researchers used a gene-editing technique called CRISPR/Cas 9 to drive a targeted gene through about 99 percent of a population of fruit flies and mosquitoes. The research was done in a lab rather than in the field.
Entomologists are particularly interested in the potential of the technology because insects reproduce frequently, making it possible to drive a desired genetic trait through a large population of insects in a short period of time. The trait could be something like sterility, which would reduce the overall population of pests.
The opportunity to control agricultural pests could be limitless, but many scientists are worried about the possibilities made famous by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: the known unknowns and unknown unknowns of gene drive.
One of the major concerns is that it’s more powerful than established biotechnology. According to Sally Otto, “What’s different about this technology is it’s not just capable of modifying a single organism, but spreading throughout a species…. (It’s) a much broader implication than genetic engineering of a single individual.”
Controlling the geographic spread of the gene is worrisome, as is the remote possibility of the gene spreading to other species.
For Patrick Tranel, a weed scientist at the University of Illinois, the technical reality of gene drive is forcing policy makers to answer a profound question: is it ethical to extinguish a species, even a pest that spreads disease? “There are very few organisms in the world that we have enough understanding that we would want to (drive it) to extinction,” he said.
There’s also the secondary impact of that extinction. What would the loss of an insect species mean to bats and birds that feed on that insect? How does the loss of that insect, or a reduced population, affect the entire ecosystem?
Using CRISPR gene editing to construct a gene drive has been around only since 2015, but the scientific and ethical debate over the technology is becoming louder.
A number of biologists say the only option is a complete ban of gene drive because there are too many unknowns.
Polling in 2016 and 2017 shows that 40 to 50 percent of North Americans think GM food is bad for their health.
With that level of public distrust, developers of gene drive technology for agriculture could face massive public opposition and severe regulatory hurdles.
In July of 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency provided $65 million in funding to seven teams of scientists to study gene drive.
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