Playing with God: Are GM mosquitoes the only way to wipe out malaria?
Environmentalists warn that removing even one species could disrupt the whole ecosystem in unforeseeable ways. AG is an important pollinator without which the flora and fauna where it lives could change dramatically.
SOPHIE ARIE: ‘Target Malaria, the name of the Imperial College-led research consortium, is just one of many projects exploring ways to engineer mosquitoes so that they stop spreading disease. But unlike so-called ‘self-limiting’ genetic modification of mosquitoes – which, for example, renders them infertile or produce infertile offspring – gene drive works by unleashing a mutated gene that spreads rapidly through the species. Once it is released it can’t be stopped. “If it works, it will eliminate a whole species,” says Dr Wakeford, an honorary associate professor at the University of Exeter…
But as the scientists edge closer to releasing gene drive mosquitoes into the wild for the first time – by 2024 in Burkina Faso – environmental and human rights groups and others are desperate to slow the process down. Playing God in this way, they warn, could do infinitely more harm than good. “Gene drives are a complete unknown,” says Tom Wakeford, UK spokesperson for ETC, a global campaign group monitoring the impact of emerging technologies on biodiversity, agriculture and human rights. “It’s a huge risk when we know that other approaches [to eradicating malaria] exist,” he adds…
Environmentalists warn that removing even one species could disrupt the whole ecosystem in unforeseeable ways. Anopheles gambiae could be an important food source and pollinator without which the flora and fauna where it lives could change dramatically. “There are agrarian communities [where gene drive research is taking place]. If their crops are affected, that’s their livelihoods, their health, everything,” says Dr Wakeford… Although the chances are slim, it is also possible that a gene drive mosquito, once in the wild, could travel long distances or cross with another organism to produce something entirely new’. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: