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First Gene Drive In Mammals Could Aid Vast New Zealand Eradication Plan (technologyreview.com)
wisebabo writes: Say goodbye to our little whiskered friends! There is an effort to wipe out not just any species, (there's been discussions to wipe out the mosquitos that carry Malaria), but a mammal. Specifically the house mouse which, along with other invasive species introduced by Westerners, have ravaged New Zealand's ecosystem. (Amongst other things they've rendered extinct many of the flightless birds there). They'll try using the "gene drive" in mammals, which is a new genetic weapon made possible by the editing system CRISPR-Cas9. Basically, it'll make all of the children of the genetically engineered mice male and then all of their children male and so on. This'll continue until there are no females left and the population will crash. If this is successful, they want to use this technique on other species until all of the predators on New Zealand are wiped out.
Haven't they seen Jurassic Park?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
...keeping it contained.
Those mice got onto the islands accidentally in the past, and one of them can just as easily accidentally end up on another island/continent where they can instigate those populations to crash as well. May take longer if it's just a single individual, but if the effects do indeed persist across future generations then it will grow into a tidal wave over time. Very hard to stop if let loose in an unintended area, and can end up crashing entire ecosystems.
produce a nascent populations that barely survive and will likely result in quick rapid mutations and possibly new species as natural selection tries to find a way. Most likely into a species that can change it's sex after adulthood or possess both sets of reproductive organs.
Why would they wipe out mosquitos instead of wiping out the true culprit: the malaria protozoa itself?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm too high to read the summary, but I'm hoping scientists aren't really planning to eradicate New Zealand. There are people there, right? Those guys that play rugby and do those war chants and stick their tongues out. It would be a shame to lose them. These are the guys I'm talking about.:
https://youtu.be/yiKFYTFJ_kw
I mean, if I'm on a rugby team and I show up for a game and the other team starts doing that shit, I'm forfeiting and going right home.
I'll just hope the headline is misleading and the crazy rugby dudes and the hobbits and shit that live in New Zealand are gonna be alright.
You are welcome on my lawn.
OUCH ! I hate to be the 'fear monger' here, but with CRISPR genetic modification, the changes are incorporated into the germ-line of that species, and will be passed down from generation - to - generation. This is the actual plan for the project, and it is being introduced into MAMMALS. Well, humans are also mammals, and similar enough to mice that the mouse line of mammals is very often used as the initial test-bed for medical research targeted at humans. How long will it take this CRISPR modification to jump species-lines, either from virus-aided transfer, or through some form of deliberate weaponization processes?
Damn, I'm kinda' glad that I'm over 70, and hopefully won't be around when (IF) this extinction-level event happens. Granted, it will take multiple generations to spread throughout the global population, but a 'kill-switch' function, or even a more elegant technique involving a basic 'count-down' trigger that self-terminates after a certain number of generation transfers (similar to, and based on, the process of telomere shrinkage with each reproductive cycle), COULD be incorporated into the process in order to limit run-away disasters if the genetic alteration does get loose, or manages to cross species lines.
I shudder to think of the implications of this research being developed to the point that it could target ANY species, and then the inevitable acquisition of the techniques by radicalized, medically-competent , scientists with either deep-pocket private backers, or state-sponsored support.
One geographic transfer / escpe process that pops to mind is a bird, or other long distance traveller, that dumps fecal matter contaminated with this gene-line altering process still active in the biological waste, which then gets eaten by another scavenger (a REALLY HUNGRY individual), and . . . boom - - - the CRISPER agent is suddenly introduced into a population outside of the targeted area, and could very well move from a geo-bound area (like islands) to a wide-open continental arena.
OK, so this is a '. . . sky is falling' scenario, but EVERY precaution needs to be considered - and planned for - when introducing a process that is deliberately designed for total species-line extermination, and there is just no way that ALL escape options will ever be able to be covered with 100% reliability.
Enjoy your nightmares ! ! !
redneck geek
Luddite-ism is never more depressing than when it's used to argue that we shouldn't try to fix ecological havoc we've already inflicted.
It's even worse given when the measures are (as they usually are in modern times) obviously much, much less risky than the existent and ongoing damage and are by their very nature prone to self-limiting instead of unchecked expansion.
With the mosquito experiments, the gene drive modified mosquitoes also get a gene that makes their eyes and other parts of their bodies glow red under laser light if the gene drive has taken hold.
So we do the same for the mice, and if it somehow jumps to humans, we distribute lasers to all the female humans so they'll know who to not mate with.
They are not creating a disease they are genetically altering mice to only produce male offspring. Reality is this will be far less successful than most people think. For a start they are not creating super mice that can out copulate other mice. Likely it will just be evolved out at any release site (those with the gene fix will be out bred by those without the gene fix), unless those mice will also out compete all other mice but they can keep repeating the exercise with increasing release numbers. That does not even touch an existing variant gene mouse, hidden out there somewhere that undoes the fix in the next generation. Isolated populations and random choice will make this an interesting gamble, very, very, unlikely to go wrong (mice are not plants and will not breed within the same genus), just simply fail.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Researchers have already tested the gene drive in a similar way (although not with mammals AFAIK). It is frighteningly effective. With the method they are proposing you don't need to make genetically superior mice that will out breed the others. By making the engineered mice only have male offspring they will be exploiting the delicate balance of ecology. The population starts out as 50/50 male/female, after a few generations it will be something like 52/48...more and more male engineered mice to breed with females, which leads to even more engineer male mice and so on. Eventually (and relatively quickly since mice have several litters a year) you reach a tipping point and the population crashes HARD. In an isolated place like New Zealand I would expect this could be 100% successful.
This technique would work especially well on bedbugs. They perform "traumatic insemination" which is using a knifelike penis to inseminate another bedbug through their exoskeleton. They are not very particular about the fertility status or even gender of the target. A surplus of males would effectively fuck everything to death.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Researchers have already tested the gene drive in a similar way (although not with mammals AFAIK). It is frighteningly effective. With the method they are proposing you don't need to make genetically superior mice that will out breed the others. By making the engineered mice only have male offspring they will be exploiting the delicate balance of ecology.
There was some ethical discussion regarding humans choosing the sex of their offspring. While no one argued that extinction would take place, surprisingly small swings acn have huge ramifications. Let's say that a lot of people wanted boys. Perhaps because of sports prowess - who knows, but there are definitely cultures where it can be downright dangerous to be born female. So if enough males are born it changes the social dynamic, as more men will not reproduce The opposite is also true. If there was a choice to have more female children born, it would mean much mor ecompetition for the fewer number of males to reproduce with.
It is almost certainly a self correcting problem for humans, hwo can presumably think, but for some animals, a small alteration will be disastrous over time, if it is a dominant trait.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.