Focusing on practical approaches seems to yield most beneficial results. I have had very good experiences in tropical climates with window screening, mosquito nets, bio-compatible repellents, traps, zappers, and would like to find more good tools.
To head off the ecological discussion about using this technology, mosquitos that carry human disease play no important ecological role and if every single one disappeared tomorrow the only consequence would be millions of people would stop dying. Over 700 million people a year get a mosquito borne disease and over a million die [1]. To stop this I would gladly sacrifice every mosquito.
Yet in many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other organisms. Life would continue as before — or even better. When it comes to the major disease vectors, "it's difficult to see what the downside would be to removal, except for collateral damage", says insect ecologist Steven Juliano, of Illinois State University in Normal.
Not that we shouldn't do it, I'm sure they can live off knats just as easily.
"The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that you have more people. That's the consequence," says Strickman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/economy/imagining...
0: overly-complex · genetic re-engineering of a wild species
1: ineffective · look at other attempts to control Nature through domination (usually, they backfire)
2: inefficient · I can barely imagine a technology we could manufacture that could do this simultaneoulsy in every affected area where humans and mosquitos live... even then, see again my point on ineffective
0. CRISPR-Cas9 is an amazing simple system that has worked in every species tested. It really is not an issue to generate gene drivers for every species we want to go after.
1. How do you know it is ineffective? Do you understand how a gene driver system works? Arguments against attempting to control nature are rather weak - modern life is a successful attempt to control nature.
2. This is the genius of gene drivers. You let them go and they do all the work for you. We only have to release the driver into the mosquito population and it will do everything from there on its own.
This technology really is a massive game changer - we just have to be brave enough to use it.
But how could we put it into practice? I only saw gene-level mechanics in that article. Please show me a machine that could do this at scale.
> modern life is a successful attempt to control nature
How so? I imagine 2,400 mothers in Brazil might have another story.
Figure 1C is what you need to look at. This is real mosquitoes, not genes.
I think the problem is you don’t understand what a gene driver system is and how it works (it is complex genetics so there is no shame in this). The wiki article [1] is not great, but the original article that raised this idea is complex, but worth reading [2]. The problem was until now we didn’t have a good system to actually make these drivers, we do now.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
2. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/270/1518/921
Link? Again, please show me a machine that can operate at scale or even a simple demo with an inlet, a re-engineered mosquito, and an outlet. (preferably without insulting me)
EDIT: Regarding the last sentence, two recessive parents are not guaranteed to produce a modified phenotype offspring. My bio is getting rusty. :)
I am pretty sure if you knew what a gene driver system is and what it can do then you would understand the significance of this paper. I edited my original post to include a link to a review paper that explores this whole area. You might find reading this helpful.
It makes a lot more sense to me when looking at it on a population level, rather than genetic. Emphasizing gene-level enhancements seems to inspire a "one-and-done approach" view, when as in the paper you added, its authors note several open questions they want to answer later (like these two):
* How can large numbers of high-quality modified insects be reared economically? In this context, how can insect quality be assessed?
* How should potential risks relating to the long-term instability/evolution of self-sustaining genetic elements be investigated, assessed and mitigated?
It seems, they have eyes bigger than their stomachs.
I will keep my eyes open to new tools from a wide range of fields. Influencing mosquito populations' genetics seems worthwhile, long-term. To get behind it, I simply want to see some practical approaches, like some phenotypic sorting tools, and some studies showing good mosquito DNA diffs. As related to this article, how/when could this work at scale in all parts of Earth mentioned here?
If it can be shown that this approach doesn't lead to some horrible side effect, it holds great promise for reducing if not wiping out this invasive species to the Americas.
1. http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dengue-fighting...
Well, I have yet to find a Brazilian who has lived in as many places (in Brazil) as I have, either number of neighborhoods (15+) or cities (5). Also, I lived in many slums, in many middle class apartments, in a few upper-class places and even some hostels.