CRISPR Gene Drives: A Weapon of Mass Destruction?
Can CRISPR gene editing be used to decimate populations?
You’ve probably heard of the gene-editing tool CRISPR, often referred to as “word processing for DNA.” Much of the attention given to this revolutionary tool has focused on medical research. But did you know it could also be used to drastically alter our environment as well? There is talk of using CRISPR to revive extinct animals like the Wooly Mammoth and the Tasmanian Tiger. But the tool can also do the opposite and cause animal extinctions through gene drives.
Gene drives allow scientists to “drive” new genes — and their associated traits — into wildlife populations at unprecedented rates. Here’s a simplified explanation of how gene drives work. In normal sexual reproduction between species with two copies of chromosomes, each gene has a 50% chance of being inherited. However, there are particular DNA sequences called “selfish genes” whose frequency in the genome increases with each generation, even if this doesn’t result in an evolutionary advantage for the offspring. In 2003, biologist Austin Burt proposed a new way to use selfish genes to spread traits more efficiently through a population and ensure that offspring have a 100% probability of inheriting a particular DNA segment.
