WIKIMEDIA, KATJA SCHULZ
Gene drives are a promising technology for controlling the populations of disease-bearing mosquitos by using their own genes against them. But a number of roadblocks still stand in the way. The underlying concept of a gene drive is to engineer genes that will consistently be passed down to offspring, thereby spreading rapidly through a population. The hope for Zika, malaria, and dengue is that such genes could be engineered to either kill off female mosquitos or confer resistance to disease vectors.
Anopheles gambiae, a significant malaria vector, may be susceptible to homing-based gene drives, which use endonucleases to insert the desired genes into offspring DNA. One problem the technique faces, however, is that mosquito populations can develop resistance to homing alleles. In a preprint published ...
