Safely Releasing Genetically Modified Genes Into The Wild

Many diseases can be controlled from a large outbreak, but infectious diseases transmitted by insects are hard to control, as they can’t be contained. Researchers have been trying to find ways of controlling the transmission of diseases from insects like mosquitoes, with one common disease carried by them being malaria. To decrease the likelihood of diseases being transmitted, researchers have found a way to genetically modify genes in organisms and releasing them into the wild, such as malaria-resistant mosquitoes.

Our ecosystem is very organized and balanced and introducing a genetically engineered species into the wild can have consequences. Therefore, the release of the genetically engineered species needs to be safely controlled and planned. As Tanaka mentions, “an accidental or premature release of a gene drive construct to the natural environment could damage an ecosystem irreversibly” (Burrows). The researchers therefore inserted weaknesses in the gene drives that would balance the genetically modified genes. These weaknesses act as an on and off switch of the gene drive that protect against a premature release and uncontrollable spreading.

Introducing a genetically modified species also doesn’t guarantee that its genes will be inherited by offspring. To counteract that, researchers developed the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system, which allowed researchers to create a system that increases the likelihood of a desired trait to be inherited to almost 100% even if that trait is disadvantageous. This means that when introducing malaria-resistant mosquitoes, the genetically engineered genes that make mosquitoes resistant to malaria could replace the wild-type genes in only a few generations instead of being only partially distributed throughout the mosquito population.

I chose this article for two reasons, first because there is a lot of controversy with genetically modified organisms where a lot of people believe it is bad even though it has many positive effects. I also chose it because recently there has been more news on mosquitoes carrying diseases like Zika. Transmitted diseases like Zika introduce fear into our communities because it seems as something impossible to protect oneself from. Our world has been hit with many deadly diseases that are transmitted by insects or other animals and the spread of these diseases are hard to control.  This would allow us to proactively fight against some of these diseases instead of having to reactively treat them.

Burrows, Leah. “Safely releasing genetically modified genes into the wild.” Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, National Science Foundation, 1 Aug. 2017, www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/08/safely-releasing-genetically-modified-genes-into-wild.