gene drive

Genetic engineering pioneer Kevin Esvelt’s work highlights biotechnology’s immense potential for good—but also for catastrophe.

This month marks ten years since CRISPR-Cas9 was repurposed as a gene editing system, so we’re looking back at what has been accomplished in a decade of CRISPR editing.

The large-scale experiments aim to test how the technology would fare in the wild, if deployed to knock down populations of the pests.

Researchers use a CRISPR-Cas9 strategy to expand a desired trait from 50 percent of mouse pups to about 72 percent.

United Nations members agree to some restrictions on the technology, but not a total suspension of its use.

No females were produced after eight generations, causing the population to collapse.

It’s the first demonstration of the technology in mammals.

Editors’ picks of the year’s best in The Scientist infographics.

In lab populations of genetically engineered mosquitoes, mutations arose that blocked the gene drive’s spread and restored female fertility.

A computer model estimates that gene-drive technology could wipe out populations of an invasive mammal on islands. 

Rare genetic variants could blunt efforts to destroy pest populations. 

Aedes and Anopheles control; three-parent babies; the PhD glut

Meet some of the people featured in the January 2017 issue of The Scientist.

Introducing genetic changes into mosquito populations could be key to effective malaria control.

For years, researchers have looked to genetically modify mosquitoes to prevent the spread of malaria. Now they have a promising strategy.

Activists claim the technology is too risky, but scientists advise the United Nations to continue to support gene drive research.

Scientists are getting to closer to developing a technique that can suppress mosquito populations on a continental scale, based on preliminary modeling results.

Researchers have identified the male-determining gene in the malaria mosquito, whose expression in females is lethal.