This year for the international
synthetic biology competition iGEM students at the University of
Michigan adventured in new territory by doing research in gene
drives. The team based there work on that of Harvard Genetics
professor George Church who described how to build a a gene drive. A
gene drive is a relatively new technique and is a sequence of DNA
inserted into a cell that promotes the inheritance of a particular
gene and increases its prevalence in a population. This is a powerful
tool because the accidental release of a drive can cause enormous
consequences as the gene would propagate very quickly across wild
type populations and possibly have immense ecological consequences.
Due to this possibility George Church created an entire paper about
the safeguards and regulations that should be utilized with regard to
gene drives. This also why so many scientists have an eye on the
young University of Michigan students. The students did place in many
safety features during their research to make sure that release was
extremely unlikely such as splitting the genes drive components
amongst two different strains of yeast. Stitching the gene drive
components was difficult and the group were actually unable to make
the complete gene drive. This research is very pertinent to viral
spread as if a gene drive that made mosquitoes infertile was created
then many arthropod-borne viruses would not be able to spread as
their vectors population would be decimated.
-Vander
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