London - Scientists have warned that a technique to spread “supercharged” genes in insects could be used by terrorists to cause an environmental disaster.
Known as “gene drive” technology, the method ensures mutations “dominate” when two insects mate – making them highly likely to spread the change to the next generation.
Researchers compare the method to an unstoppable “nuclear chain reaction” – the genes are genetically engineered to spread – whether or not they benefit the insect.
Used for good, the technique could in theory be used to eliminate mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria or yellow fever. But the GM creatures could also be used to spread lethal diseases.
David Gurwitz, a geneticist at Tel Aviv University, said: “Just as gene drives can make mosquitos unfit for hosting and spreading the malaria parasite, they could conceivably be designed with gene drives carrying cargo for delivering lethal bacterial toxins to humans.”
In this week’s journal Science, 27 leading geneticists have called on the scientific community to come clean to the public about the potential hazards and benefits of gene drives.
The authors wrote: “They have tremendous potential to address global problems in health, agriculture and conservation but their capacity to alter wild populations outside the laboratory demands caution.”
They went on to argue that complete openness and transparency was the best defence against the use of gene drives as a bio-weapon. And they called for a range of safety measures to ensure that the altered species cannot spread to the wild by accident.
These include carrying out experiments only in areas where there is no wild population of the species, to prevent them affecting other insects if they escape.
Daily Mail