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Self-destructing mosquitoes and sterilized rodents: the promise of gene drives

Altering the genomes of entire animal populations could help to defeat disease and control pests, but researchers worry about the consequences of unleashing this new technology.
  1. Megan Scudellari

    1. Megan Scudellari is a science journalist in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Illustration by Ana Kova

Austin Burt and Andrea Crisanti had been trying for eight years to hijack the mosquito genome. They wanted to bypass natural selection and plug in a gene that would mushroom through the population faster than a mutation handed down by the usual process of inheritance. In the back of their minds was a way to prevent malaria by spreading a gene to knock out mosquito populations so that they cannot transmit the disease.

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Nature 571, 160-162 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02087-5

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