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[Salvor.Hardin]

The Wipeout Gene

A new breed of genetically modified mosquitoes carries a gene that cripples its own offspring. They could crush native mosquito populations and block the spread of disease. And they are already in the air—though that's been a secret

The technology marks the first time scientists have genetically engineered an organism to specifically wipe out a native population to block disease transmission. If the modified mosquitoes triumph, then releasing them in dengue-endemic zones worldwide could prevent tens of millions of people from suffering. Yet opponents of the plan warn of unintended consequences—even if mosquitoes are the intended victims.

Researchers also struggle with how to test their creations. No international laws or agencies exist to police trials of new transgenic organisms. For the most part, scientists and biotech companies can do what they want—even performing uncontrolled releases of test organisms in developing countries, neither warning the residents that their backyards are about to become a de facto biocolonialist field laboratory nor gaining their consent.

When a genetically modified male mosquito mates with a wild female, he passes his engineered genes to the offspring. The females—the biters—don’t survive long. When they emerge from the pupal stage, they sit motionless on the water. They won’t fly, mate or spread disease. The male progeny, in contrast, will live to spread their filicidal seed.

To kill female mosquitoes—the ones that suck blood and spread disease—James needed to hijack a genetic region that only females make use of. In 2002 James and Alphey identified a naturally occurring switch that controls flight-muscle development in females. Turn it off, and flight muscles won’t develop. Female mosquitoes emerging from the pupal stage just squat on the water’s surface, flightless, unable to attract mates. It was the perfect target.

Alphey founded Oxitec in 2002 to capitalize on the technology. In 2005 the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, funded in large part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, granted James $20 million to test genetic strategies against dengue. James gave Oxitec $5 million to build the mosquitoes.

The collaborators designed a stretch of DNA that included a handful of genes and the regulatory switches needed to turn them on and off at the correct time. The system works like a relay team. During the mosquito’s metamorphosis from larva to adult, the female-specific switch flips on, activating the first gene, which produces a protein. This protein activates a second switch that kicks on gene number two, which then manufactures a toxin that destroys the female’s flight muscles. The researchers also added genes for fluorescent proteins that make modified larvae glow red and green, allowing them to monitor the spread of the genes through the population.

To breed large populations of a mosquito that they had explicitly programmed to die, Alphey and James needed a way to protect the females from the toxic gene cassette until after they reproduced. The trick was lacing the water with an antidote—the antibiotic tetracycline, which blocks production of the flight muscle–destroying protein. This design is also an emergency fail-safe: if a few of these genetically modified mosquitoes escape, they cannot reproduce without the drug.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-wipeout-gene

Goddamn. I love the future. I do wonder what kind of unintended consequences could spring from this.

 

[Lionheart1337]

Saw this on Reddit. This shit cray.

 

[POWERSPHERE]

See you all in hell.

 

[Steelrain]

Genocide!!!

 

[strata8]

This sounds like it could have disasterous consequences. You can't remove an entire species from the food chain and expect nothing to happen.

 

[RedShift]

God I hope someone did a ridiculously large amount of modelling before doing this. These things always find a way to fuck up massively

 

[Drazgul]

Good, good. Destroy them all with no mercy.

 

[Cheerilee]

Resident Evil, the theme park. I'd pay $50 to help with the cleanup (assuming I had near-unlimited herbs and ammo).

 

[Rapstah]

I don't understand this. Evolutionally, this will just make sure none of their weakened mosquitoes survive to have offspring.

 

[hirokazu]

That sounds awesome. Aside from the regular concerns about releasing GM organisms, but they do seem to have some levels of fail safe implemented, which is good.

 

[noah111]

Fuck, this is both amazing and frightening... the consequences could be extremely dire, like what would happen if bees went extinct.

BUT WORSE YET:

Millions of years from now when humans are all wiped out and a different intelligent spices populates the earth, they won't be able to find a misqito in amber with human blood and clone it to make HUMANIC PARK.

 

[Salvor.Hardin]

Fuck, this is both amazing and frightening... the consequences could be extremely dire, like what would happen if bees went extinct.

BUT WORSE YET:

Millions of years from now when humans are all wiped out and a different intelligent spices populates the earth, they won't be able to find a misqito in amber with human blood and clone it to make HUMANIC PARK.

What's the point? They'd just end up wiping themselves out again. Never underestimate man's potential for self-destruction.

 

[Mr. Sam]

I'm sorry, you did what?

 

[Zaptruder]

This sounds like it could have disasterous consequences. You can't remove an entire species from the food chain and expect nothing to happen.

Hahaha.... we've killed so many species off it's not funny. I'm sure there'll be some impact, but to think it'll be 'catastrophic' may be a little too alarmist.

 

[milanbaros]

I don't understand this. Evolutionally, this will just make sure none of their weakened mosquitoes survive to have offspring.

yep.

 

[Mr. Sam]

Wait. No. Never mind. I get it. I get it.

 

[Joel Was Right]

What's the point? They'd just end up wiping themselves out again. Never underestimate man's potential for self-destruction.

Came to this sad realisation a few days ago. Eventually, inevitably, we will wipe ourselves off the face of the Earth/any planet. Maybe someone put that in our genetic code to get rid of us!

 

[hirokazu]

I don't understand this. Evolutionally, this will just make sure none of their weakened mosquitoes survive to have offspring.

Doesn't the article say they're designed to be fit until after they breed? Then their flight muscles get destroyed.

 

[Cheerilee]

Fuck, this is both amazing and frightening... the consequences could be extremely dire, like what would happen if bees went extinct.

We pretty much know everything that bees do. Help lazy plants have sex. Defend the Queen! If you get them mad, they'll sting you, rip themselves loose from the stinger in triumph, and then die from having ripped their own stinger out.

We pretty much know everything that mosquitoes do. Bite mammals. Drink blood. Spread disease.

My biggest concern is that when the alien invaders arrive to take over, mosquitoes won't be on the front lines to spread our diseases. But there are other ways to do that, like germ warfare. The mosquitoes would probably just expose us to alien germs anyways.


Edit: If this works, next species on the chopping block should be bedbugs. But then if that works, which species do we kill next? I could see us getting carried away.

 

[Ashes]

http://allafrica.com/stories/201105030546.html

 

[Salvor.Hardin]

I don't understand this. Evolutionally, this will just make sure none of their weakened mosquitoes survive to have offspring.

Should have added this part in the OP:

When a genetically modified male mosquito mates with a wild female, he passes his engineered genes to the offspring. The females—the biters—don’t survive long. When they emerge from the pupal stage, they sit motionless on the water. They won’t fly, mate or spread disease. The male progeny, in contrast, will live to spread their filicidal seed.

 

[Darklord]

 

[WorriedCitizen]

What if some of the females have a mutation that overrides the crippling effect and as a result a race of super mosquitos emerges?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I don't understand this. Evolutionally, this will just make sure none of their weakened mosquitoes survive to have offspring.

They are only weakened without the presence of a certain drug. The idea is to give them this drug for a while so that the genes can flow freely amongst the population, then stop administering it, so suddenly the population suffers a massive catastrophic failure. Because the gene is benign for so long, there is no evolutionary pressure to prevent it's free exchange. It's single use, because as you say the gene self-limits once it's "set off", but it can be administered repeatedly - once you kill them off and they start to recover their population, you can simply start all over again with the same outcome.

The point isn't to wipe out all mosquitoes - and in fact if this was NOT self-limiting (which you are wondering why it isn't), it would be another out-of-control bioweapon, like the Cane Toads before it.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

What if some of the females have a mutation that overrides the crippling effect and as a result a race of super mosquitos emerges?

Why would they be super? They would simply be regular mosquitoes without these new genes. AFAIK they didn't give them super strength or something ridiculous.

 

[strata8]

Should have added this part in the OP:

There are nearly 3500 species of mosquito, though. This would only destroy one.

 

[GrandHarrier]

 

[Ashes]

This seems to be a different to the story I read earlier in the year...

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Should have added this part in the OP:

Hmm seems I've misunderstood. Is it only females that bite people? If so this seems like a really fantastic idea.

 

[LordCanti]

*clears throat*

SPIDERS NEXT!

 

[strata8]

Hmm seems I've misunderstood. Is it only females that bite people? If so this seems like a really fantastic idea.

It's still effectively going to destroy the population. That's the intent of it as far as I can tell.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

It's still effectively going to destroy the population. That's the intent of it as far as I can tell.

Well in that case what I said before still holds. You'll wipe out large chunks of the bastards in a specific area. You can't get them all, and they will recover (even if a local population is totally destroyed, neighboring populations will recolonize the area eventually), but its still potentially very useful for keeping the populations down in disease ridden-areas.

 

[The Technomancer]

We pretty much know everything that bees do. Help lazy plants have sex. Defend the Queen! If you get them mad, they'll sting you, rip themselves loose from the stinger in triumph, and then die from having ripped their own stinger out.

We pretty much know everything that mosquitoes do. Bite mammals. Drink blood. Spread disease.

My biggest concern is that when the alien invaders arrive to take over, mosquitoes won't be on the front lines to spread our diseases. But there are other ways to do that, like germ warfare. The mosquitoes would probably just expose us to alien germs anyways.


Edit: If this works, next species on the chopping block should be bedbugs. But then if that works, which species do we kill next? I could see us getting carried away.

And provide food for a lot of other animals.

 

[Machine]

There are seven billion humans on earth. We should be trying to control the size of our own population instead of worrying about nuisance insects.

 

[Pandaman]

whats really cool is that what they are engineering can happen naturally from time to time.

its tricky things like these that serve as good examples that long term survivability is a consequence and not a goal* of natural selection.

*metaphorically speaking.

 

[Majine]

Make way for more humans! Because we are so good.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

And provide food for a lot of other animals.

Open ecosystems are resilient motherfuckers. Animals that eat mosquitos are usually not exclusively eating mosquitos, and with the mosqs nolonger competing for resources, other similar insects (which are also food for many animals) would be given room to flourish. Even so, a reduction in food does not imply they go extinct, just that the populations of those animals will be smaller than when food was more plentiful. The ecosystem falls into an equilibrium different from the one it was previously in, but does not collapse. Alternatively, in a worst case scenario where it DID lead to the extinction of species that relied on them for food, this is only "problematic" if those species themselves were in some way vital to the survival of the rest of the system. Finding a predatory species that feeds exclusively or primarily on say, frogs and toads is a bit difficult. This is all theoretical, of course.

I'm reminded of the Biosphere-2 experiment, wherein all the insects died. Instead of resulting in the deaths of plants that required these insects to pollinate, other animals (ants and cockroaches) ended up taking up pollination duties much to the surprise of the observers. I don't want to make out like I'm saying that knocking out species willie-nillie is fine and no problem, but I do want to stress the point that it's not quite as fragile as many would have us believe.

 

[Zaptruder]

What would be better is if they engineered mosquitoes that are repelled by humans. Who gives a shit about mosquitoes if they're not biting us?

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

*clears throat*

SPIDERS ROACHES NEXT!

Agreed.

 

[Cheerilee]

And provide food for a lot of other animals.

Bats can eat something else. Like bees.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Open ecosystems are resilient motherfuckers. Animals that eat mosquitos are usually not exclusively eating mosquitos, and with the mosqs nolonger competing for resources, other similar insects (which are also food for many animals) would be given room to flourish. Even so, a reduction in food does not imply they go extinct, just that the populations of those animals will be smaller than when food was more plentiful. The ecosystem falls into an equilibrium different from the one it was previously in, but does not collapse. Alternatively, in a worst case scenario where it DID lead to the extinction of species that relied on them for food, this is only "problematic" if those species themselves were in some way vital to the survival of the rest of the system. Finding a predatory species that feeds exclusively or primarily on say, frogs and toads is a bit difficult. This is all theoretical, of course.

I'm reminded of the Biosphere-2 experiment, wherein all the insects died. Instead of resulting in the deaths of plants that required these insects to pollinate, other animals (ants and cockroaches) ended up taking up pollination duties much to the surprise of the observers. I don't want to make out like I'm saying that knocking out species willie-nillie is fine and no problem, but I do want to stress the point that it's not quite as fragile as many would have us believe.

From my understanding of fish biology, many species of fish babies rely almost entirely on mosquito larvae to survive. Sometimes the mosquito are the only small food source in a very small ponds.

Although, with the mosquito gone, maybe shrimp or water bugs will be able to refill the niche. I guess you're right, something will replace the mosquito as a staple aquatic food supply

 

[GodofWine]

There are seven billion humans on earth. We should be trying to control the size of our own population instead of worrying about nuisance insects.

I agree, and by removing these insects, population issues in challenged nations will accelerate...the earth has an odd way of regulating / fighting back against man's heavy handed way of ruining it, if its not 'skeeters spreading disease, it'll be something else, and probably worse.

(what eats mosquitos? what food chain will we stomp out?)

 

[dc89]

Wow science. I think it's another debate entirely to decide if this is moral etc but it sure is impressive what science can do these days.

 

[Mikey Jr.]

Too bad its not possible to make the mosquito hate human blood somehow. Or, like, not attracted it it at all.

 

[First Name]

Any one want to take bets on what the consequences will be?

 

[Stet]

Any one want to take bets on what the consequences will be?

Famine.

 

[Azuran]

Instead of mosquitoes, they should be genetically modifying people in those area so they stop breeding. There's plenty of enough people in this world. Maybe the diseases are just a way of controlling them.

 

[qcf x2]

What happens to the animals that eat these mosquitoes?

If the answer is nothing, then it's time to rid the world of roaches next!

 

[PdotMichael]

I agree, and by removing these insects, population issues in challenged nations will accelerate...the earth has an odd way of regulating / fighting back against man's heavy handed way of ruining it, if its not 'skeeters spreading disease, it'll be something else, and probably worse.

(what eats mosquitos? what food chain will we stomp out?)

no animal has mosquitos as only food source, so you would just save many human lifes.

 

[Cow Mengde]

This sounds like it could have disasterous consequences. You can't remove an entire species from the food chain and expect nothing to happen.

If humans were wiped out, I doubt it'll have any dire effect on the planet. Just saying.