Talk:Gene drive

old issues1
" The process may require under a year for some invertebrates, but centuries for organisms with years-long intervals between birth and sexual maturity, such as humans.[12]"

If it works through generations, it has noting to the years. Unnecessary sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.65.53.122 (talk • contribs) 22:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I see your point but disagree, it's useful to give order of magnitude for a more general audience. Might be rephrased though… (Tjulou (talk) 05:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC))

Old issues2
"As of 2014 no drive capable of spreading efficiently through a wild population had been developed."

The experiments published (March, 19th 2015) by Gantz and Bier were finished at December, 28th 2014. It is not unlikely, that their flies could spread efficiently through a wild population, if they would be released. Therefore the sentence above should be changed to:

"As of 2014 no drive capable of spreading efficiently through a wild population had been published." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.144.217.184 (talk • contribs)  13:03, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

off topic removal
this section was removed as off topic. the problem is, its an important news item, and should be SOMEWHERE. removing off topic material should also include consideration for where the material should go, if anywhere.

On 19 March 2015, scientists, including David Baltimore, a co-discoverer of the CRISPR/Cas9 pathway, urged a worldwide moratorium on genetically engineering the human germline, writing “scientists should avoid even attempting, in lax jurisdictions, germline genome modification for clinical application in humans” until the full implications “are discussed among scientific and governmental organizations.”. Nonetheless, in April 2015, Chinese researchers reported results of basic research to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos using CRISPR. Human germline engineering could be seen as a kind of gene drive.

I think its not off topic. perhaps it needs its own article though.

--(mercurywoodrose)50.193.19.66 (talk) 16:03, 15 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It actually is off topic. Gene drive refers to things that spread themselves in a non-Mendelian way.  I don't think anyone is suggesting putting these into humans as gene therapy - it's kind of supervillainy.  The only common thread is that Cas9/CRISPR is the hottest thing since sliced bread, and can control various changes in genome sequence with unprecedented precision. Wnt (talk) 17:37, 14 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I aslo find this off topic: at best, there should be a dedicated section/page on the implications of CRISPR-based genome editing and regulatory issues. The gene drive page should point to this one (Tjulou (talk) 05:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC)).

in Mechanism section: how/why "greater than the normal 50% chance of being inherited" ?
Could someone please add an explanation of how/why "Some genes in species that reproduce sexually have greater than the normal 50% chance of being inherited." ? Or at least a link to an explanation? UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 01:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Page structure
IMHO the page structure should be reorganised to explain the mechanism first and give the historical background only in a second part. Also the mechanisms / applications / issues sections should be expanded. I will try to come up with a concrete proposal. (Tjulou (talk) 05:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC))

@ Jytdog it would indeed be nicer to at least put a comment here when you revert an edit that has been proposed in the talk page. do you realised that this are hours of work to try to improve a single page. It really feels like you're trying to kill the motivation of fresh wikipedias. Not even talking of your semi-locked talk page that makes you unreachable to people like me :( Tjulou (talk) 15:46, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * My talk page got semi-locked because it was being vandalized. In any case, the article talk page is the appropriate place to discuss article content. If you have questions about my edit note this is the place to ask.  What is unclear to you? Jytdog (talk) 16:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I restored previous by smaller chunks. Is that ok now? Tjulou (talk) 19:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

types of gene drive
This section was suppressed by Jytdog arguing that it's WP:OR… IMHO it is important and must indeed be improved and supported by original references: simply deleting it is not a solution.

@Jytdog: for such major changes please at least mention them in the talk page…

== Types == The term gene drive refers to both the principle of biasing allele inheritance and to the genetic elements featuring a biased inheritance (i.e. a piece of DNA). Several type of gene drives have been distinguished:
 * a "reversal" drive undoes a prior drive's effects, in all or part of the population, although downstream ecological changes might remain.
 * an "immunizing drive" blocks another drive from spreading by preemptively altering sequences that another drive targets, preventing the latter from initiating copying.
 * a "precision" drive exclusively impacts a population by targeting unique genomic loci (DNA sequences).


 * a "repetitive" drive features multiple iterations to further establish or maintain new trait(s).
 * a "rogue" drive is intended to deliberately cause harm.

--Tjulou (talk) 15:15, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

gene drives applied to Lyme disease
This research is been reverted. I believe it should be here and if there is any issue it can be reworded, is a on going event, in is early stages.

Using gene drives to make mice immune to the Lyme disease bacterium or a protein in tick’s saliva in order to prevent transmission was proposed by M.I.T. researcher Kevin Esvelt.

-- Quantanew (talk) 01:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This was reverted each time per WP:CRYSTALBALL which is Wikipedia policy. Please respond to the objection.  Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:58, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

US National Academy of Sciences (USNAS)
US National Academy of Sciences (USNAS) recently published its assessment of gene drive engineering, This is a major development, and needs to be addressed in the article ASAP. I've added Ecology and Biology wikiprojects, and listed the article as high priority in the ecology and genetics projects. This is cutting edge science but is largely the future of ecosystem control and invasive species control, yet is hardly mentioned in the article at all! Major expansion is needed, so I've listed the article as needing urgent attention by each of the wikiprojects and will do some of the work myself as well, although article writing isn't my strongest skill. InsertCleverPhraseHere  07:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Gene drive. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160201114343/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fdda5bf9f0314b748c7438c9659da83a/britain-approves-controversial-gene-editing-technique to http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fdda5bf9f0314b748c7438c9659da83a/britain-approves-controversial-gene-editing-technique

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Oxitec sections removed (NOT GENE DRIVE, just genetically modified)
The fundamental element of gene drive is that the modified allele has an inheritance rate greater than 50%.

Oxitec's mosquito releases in Brazil, the Caymans, Panama, India, and proposed releases in the Florida Keys are similar to gene drive proposals on the surface: both involve the release of genetically-modified male mosquitoes. However, Oxitec's "friendly" OX513A mosquitoes are not gene drive. Oxitec emphasizes the difference: they "contain a ‘self-limiting’ gene, and when this gene is passed on to their offspring, the offspring do not survive to adulthood, resulting in a reduction in the pest insect population." The method is "‘self-limiting’ because the released insects and their offspring are designed to die and disappear from the environment.". These males are raised in the lab, during which time they are given an 'antidote' allowing them to live to sexual maturity.

To be effective, Oxitec has to release hundreds of thousands to millions of modified males - upwards of 25% of the wild population. Every wild-type female that mates with a modified male has all of her offspring die, because the modification is fatal to pre-adolescents. In this way, the effective heritability of the modification is 0%, since those carrying the modification will not live to sexual maturity to pass it on. In this scenario, the mosqito population is reduced because the modified males compete during breeding but their offspring immediately die. However, once releases of modified males cease, the population will naturally rebound. Once the release of new modified males ceases, the gene disappears from the population within 1 generation (more technically, within 1 lifespan).

Contrast that with gene drive. Every wild-type female that mates with a modified male has sterile female offspring and, importantly, viable (living) males that carry the modification. The critical difference, then, is that the males survive and further spread the modification once they reach sexual maturity, and so do their offspring, and so on. The modification eventually spreads to 100% of the population (in e.g. 12-15 generations, starting from a release of only 0.1% the wild population). Therefore, eventually, all females of the population would be sterile, causing the (local) elimination of the species. Once the gene exists in the population it will basically inevitably spread to 100% of the (non-inbreeding) members, because of the >50% heritability of the allele.

TLDR: Oxitec's mosquitoes are deliberately self-limiting and cannot spread throughout an entire population from the release of a single male. By definition, gene-drive is inherently self-spreading because of the >50% heritability of the allele, and the eventual spread throughout the population is the main feature.

Oxitec's genetic modifications are conservative (effectively just an implementation of the Sterile insect technique) and considered relatively safe, hence their use in several nations from 2012 onward. Gene drive is currently (2019) seen as a high-risk option suitable only to combat "true plagues ... with few adequate countermeasures", and has yet to be used in the wild. Tofof (talk) 03:48, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Ethical Issues
Is there any need for a discussion on the potential ethical issues? There are some articles that have often included things like "Criticism" in them. I'm curious if this could be important here 69.124.225.237 (talk) 23:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing
Hello I think this edit is incorrect. I think you are asking for a primary source instead of the secondary source that is there - In fact WP:SECONDARY are preferred due to their broader and more independent perspective. Invasive Spices (talk) 6 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing this out, . I updated the reason. It should reflect my outstanding concern that the existing source doesn't give any reference to the Broad Institute's list in question. I couldn't find the list but want to confirm that it in fact (still?) exists. Let me know if you disagree or think I may be missing something. Plasmastate (talk) 18:59, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes I see. I did not attempt to verify the Broad Institute statement but now I have: It is almost certainly incorrect. These links don't prove it is incorrect but it is hard to believe. Invasive Spices (talk) 6 February 2022 (UTC)