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Genetically Modifying an Entire Ecosystem
New submitter structural_biologist writes: Genes normally have a 50-50 chance of being passed from parent to offspring, but scientists may have figured out a way to create genes that show up in offspring with a much higher frequency. "One type of gene drive influences inheritance by copying itself onto chromosomes that previously lacked it. When an organism inherits such a gene drive from only one parent, it makes a cut in the chromosome from the other parent, forcing the cell to copy the inheritance-biasing gene drive—and any adjacent genes—when it repairs the damage." When introduced into the wild, organisms containing gene drives would breed with the population, quickly spreading the modified genes throughout the ecosystem. While the technology could help prevent the spread of malaria and manage invasive species, many scientists worry about the wide-ranging effects of such a technology and are calling for its regulation.
Do not open it.
"The so-called “CRISPR” system naturally protects bacteria from viruses by storing fragments of viral DNA sequence and cutting any sequences that exactly match the fragment. "
This makes me think of all the confusing HIV data.
"Derive" or "derived" in place of "drive"? Editor?
Sooner or later something using this is going to go viral. All we can hope is that it'll be relatively harmless or at least fixable in time. If we're really unlucky nuclear war will seem benign in comparison.
Without considering the potential need for regulation the first question is whether any effective regulations can be put in place. Getting all nations and perhaps all individuals to follow a rule or law is next to impossible. Can an individual make such a genetic alteration? How could we prevent that? Could it be weaponized by a lunatic government such as N. Korea?
To me that implied all species. Obviously that isn't the case.
Because CRISPR itself is so precise, we can envision a number of safeguards. Alterations can be reversed by releasing a new drive with an updated version of the change.
...and when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
This is the stuff of horror stories. Humans are not intelligent or smart enough to know how to do this. The consequences are immense and terrible.
Read No Blade of Grass / The Death of Grass for a not so fun treaties on this topic.
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about 50-50 chance. that's kind of key.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One Man's Pandora's Box is one Monsanto's Profit Bin.
Calling for regulation is like calling for socialism.
Didn't we live in a laissez-faire world?
Summary is an excerpt of an article highlighting some potential use of technology developed by George Church's lab at Harvard (and others). It is actually some pretty incredible stuff. Church's first published the adaption of the CRISPR system to gene editing in eukaryotes a few years ago. Basically, it works like this. CRISPR is a bacterial defense system where an enzyme (endonuclease) is directed to cut a specific DNA sequence by it's directly adjacent targeting sequence. Bacteria use this to protect themselves from viruses. When a virus tries to insert itself into the genome of a bacterium, CRISPR will cleave that sequence (if the bacterium has the appropriate targeting system) and subsequent DNA repair processes will occur that will excise the viral sequence. You can think of it as a pseudo-immunity system for bacteria against viruses. Like other DNA sequences, CRISPR sequences can be transferred between bacteria in a population allowing for broad-ranging resistance to viral infection to occur within a bacterial community.
The innovation by Church's group is to put the CRISPR system in eukaryotes. Introducing modified genes by homologous recombination has been around for a long time, but the problem with most eukaryotes is they have multiple copies of each chromosome. So a modification in one copy will get diluted out over several rounds of replication. By including the CRISPR system in the mutation that targets the original gene, a mechanism is supplied to allow a modified gene to quickly spread throughout the population. This makes genetic modification of eukaryotes much more efficient and easier to control.
Now, while safely applies in a laboratory system, the ecological consequences of using such a system in a natural setting are unclear. This is the purpose of the article: to raise some of the issues and possibilities to begin a discussion about how such a system might be used safely and what sort of regulations may need to be put into place. The article does quite a good job of illustrating some scenarios. Here is what I consider the meat of it, but of course other scenarios exist as well.
Why and how might we use gene drives to intervene in a particular ecosystem? Our earlier example is perhaps the most compelling: we might use gene drives to control malaria by altering Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Anti-malarial medicines and insecticides are losing effectiveness due to evolving resistance, while a vaccine remains out of reach despite intense research and investment. Gene drives, in contrast, might spread genes conferring malaria resistance through the mosquito populations with few if any effects on other species. Alternatively, they might be able to reduce or even eliminate the mosquitoes for long enough to permanently eradicate the malaria parasite. Similar strategies could work for other organisms that spread disease.
Just want to put that out there so that a somewhat productive conversation can hopefully happen here.
Ice-nine, my favorite example of not thinking things all the way through. That and the Army Corp of Engineers constant fucking with the Mississippi River.
Serenity now, insanity later.
I agree. Genetically modifying the entire ecosystem starts with lawn mowing, and killing all native vegetation and biodiversity previously present in it. Then into this mowed and weed killed and pesticide and insecticide filled "green desert" you call a "pretty lawn" with your fucking corporate brainwashed distorted sense of beauty, we can realease all purely genetically modified, and 0wned by Da Man himself organisms, as a new fashion, new vogue, in a bandwagon that everyone jumps onto like they jump unto smartphones, fashion designer designed genetically modified plants on your front lawn that look exactly like your ex-weeds you used to cut down so vehemently, these new fashionable but "pretty" lawn "weeds" that you can rent for a monthly fee sucking the very last cents out of your bank account, plus one cent, and the crimes you commit and rules and laws you break to get that extra cent will prove that you're just a filthy little thief no better than Da Man. Fuck Monsanto. If there is anything ever representing the excesses of private property, and the devastation it unleashes unto the world, it's embodied in everything Monsanto does, starting with genetically modifying things to own every biological thing in the world to promoting spraying the whole world down with pesticides and insecticides, in the name of private property, quarterly profit, and bottom line. And even without intellectual property, it is possible to create seeds that you can't save seeds from next harvest, because they are sterile, so once every lifeform is "sterilized," (this includes tigers and you yourself), the only way to create new life will be to purchase a permit from Da Man, and he will give you a seed that can create new life, but whose seeds are also sterile. Holding a reserve of seeds that are not sterile in future generations will be illegal or at least get you killed by the maffiozos, and this includes having humans that are not sterile from birth, but actually able to reproduce, instead of having to apply for a permit at some hospital, receiving a sperm and egg packet in the mail, and having babies like that, with optional black or white or blue or green or orange tint on their skins, and eye irises the colors of the rainbow. The miracles of science and biotechnology coming your way, directly from Monsanto.
We're already doing that.
Relatively little is understood about ecosystems, and what IS comprehended is the extreme complexity of ecosystems and the mystery of the vast unknowns of ecosystems.
For example; recently a bacteria inside a bacteria that lives inside an insect was discovered to share it's genetic material with the bacteria it resides inside. When something like this is a surprising, new discovery, how can we even begin to claim that we can predict, with any certainty or accuracy, what unusual and radical genetic changes we make to anything is going to have on any ecosystem ?
The reality is, we can not, and do not even have any kind of standardized way to trace, catalog, and monitor the dynamic interactions within and between ecosystems.
Hubris usually leads to disaster.
They should ban and make illegal any biotech seed that's not fertile the next year. If Monsanto ever goes out of business after they converted the whole world to become dependent on their roundup ready but nonfertile, sterile seeds, there'd be a major collapse in the biosphere, a major extinction event, dependent on a corporation going out of business. That is insane. It's like Microsoft requiring all operating systems to be activated after install to function starting with XP, disregarding the scenario of if they ever go out of business, as they don't give a crap what happens after they are dead as a company, as self interest is their only motivator, not in balance with the protection of other life or the other people. That is not in accordance with the ways of God. God is externalized ego, to get rid of the tendency to deify the self. Monsanto and Microsoft are arrogant in self assertion and profit mongering out of balance with the public good. Any company who becomes a monopoly, a standard, and does not give a crap about what happens to everyone when they die, should be regulated by lawmakers. How is your product going to keep functioning when you made so many people dependent on it and derived great profit from it, when you die as a business? Every business dies, even if the name may live on, it's not the same business, the name living on is just a mere artifact. Very few make it a few hundred years as a stable business, and most are dead in under 100. Recent deaths are Kodak, Oldsmobile, Lehman Bros, etc. You have to care about more than just the self interest if you make so make so many dependent on you. I know pure altruism and communism doesn't work either, it's not practical with real life people, but neither is pure capitalism, or pure every living thing is private property and every thought and word uttered is private property in an aristocrat-nobility owners owning all life and all thought vs. commoner tenants and wage slaves world, else we would not have had all those peasant rebellions for millenia through history. People forget to keep that in mind. Yin Yang balance and moderation is what works, but you shouldn't have to spell it out and explain that to people with common sense.
Waaaa, maybe something might theoretically go wrong, so waaa, I don't like this, science is dangerous, waaaaa. And why should I worry about malaria anyway? So what if it kills more people than all wars, murders and traffic accidents, times ten. It's not gonna get into my mom's basement, so fuck everybody else, as long as I'm safe. I'll get on my high horse about how no risks are worth it to solve other people's (catastrophic) problems.
Fourth, our current knowledge of the risk management (5,11,36,37,95) and containment (35,38) issues associated with gene drives is largely due to the efforts of researchers focused on mosquito-borne illnesses. Frameworks for evaluating ecological consequences are similarly focused on mosquitoes (39) and the few other organisms for which alternative genetic biocontrol methods have been considered (96). While these examples provide an invaluable starting point for investigations of RNA-guided gene drives targeting other organisms, studies examining the particular drive, population, and associated ecosystem in question will be needed.
Go ahead and check out the references (and the rest of the paper) if you're genuinely interested in this topic. This is not mad science, nor is it Pandora's Box.