Monday, March 23, 2015

Extraordinary stuff

according to Rahul Siddharthan.
Biologists devise invasion plan for mutations:
"In the study, published online this week (http://scim.ag/VMGantz), Gantz and Bier report that the introduced mutation disabled both normal copies of a pigmentation gene on the fruit fly chromosomes, transmitting itself to the next generation with 97% efficiency—a near-complete invasion of the genome. The secret of its success: an increasingly popular gene-editing toolkit called CRISPR (Science, 23 August 2013, p.833), which Gantz and Bier adapted to give the mutation an overwhelming advantage. The technique is the latest—and some say, most impressive—example of gene drive: biasing inheritance to spread a gene rapidly through a population, or even an entire species. At this level of efficiency, a single mosquito equipped with a parasite-blocking gene could in theory spread malaria resistance through an entire breeding population in a single season "
More at ScinceDaily "The two biologists note in their paper that while applications of MCR offer potential solutions to important problems in health and human welfare, it could also pose serious potential risks in the wrong hands."

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