In their July 2014 paper, Esvelt and his colleagues described
how gene drive would work: CRISPR would cut a target gene in a cell or cells, probably an egg or embryo.
Much more research is needed on
how gene drive would work under different environmental conditions or whether the selected genes would spread to other species or change in some way over time.
Researchers still don't know
how gene drives will behave in the wild, whether the public will accept them or what regulatory hoops they will have to jump through.
Laboratory and field research is needed to refine gene drive mechanisms and better understand
how gene drives work, from the molecular level through species and ecosystem levels.
Not exact matches
CCG will be «squeezing» more clinically meaningful information out of cancer genomics, to understand at the molecular level
how genes and mutations
drive cancer and determine response to treatment.
Esvelt says he also attended last month's JASON meeting in San Diego, California, where he outlined
how would - be bioterrorists might weaponize
gene drives.
But he wanted the convention to call for greater transparency in
how the technology is studied in labs and deployed in the field, for instance by creating a mandatory
gene -
drive registry.
Ecologist Ron Thresher got a sense of
how the public might react to
gene drives when he described his plan to use genetic engineering to rid the Australian waterways of invasive European carp, a voracious fish that can turn a crystal - clear stream into «a disgusting mudhole.»
That report highlighted the UN Convention on Biodiversity as a potential tool with which to regulate
gene drives, including
how, when and even whether they are deployed.
The project, which will look at
how genes and environment interact to
drive disease in kids, is different from its predecessors, says Kenneth Mandl, a physician, biomedical informaticist, and one of the project's leaders at Children's.
The study expands our current understanding of the nature of gamete - killing meiotic
drive genes and
how they can contribute to infertility, she adds.
In the paper, the researchers illustrate
how it could influence proteins that activate the transcription factors that transcribe major bone - related
genes to
drive bone formation — showing a link between metabolite usage and activation of transcription factors.
Gene drive is so different from other technologies involving genetic modification that it requires a whole new way of thinking about
how to evaluate and regulate it, says Jennifer Kuzma, a natural and social scientist at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh who helped organize a February workshop there.
In some scenarios,
gene drive would cause a population to go extinct, and data are lacking on
how the loss of a species would affect its local ecosystem.
But specifically
how human variants of such
genes shape our brain in development — and
how they
drove its evolution — have remained largely mysterious.
I was fascinated to read
how the double duplication of the SRGAP2
gene, which helps
drive development of the brain's neocortex, appears to have propelled our ancestors» development at two distinct times during the past few million years (12 May, p 10).
To really understand the origins of retinoblastoma, we need to look beyond
genes to understand
how epigenetic changes
drive cancer.»
Jiggins and others are now trying to figure out what kinds of
genes reside within these islands, and
how they
drive two populations apart.
Researchers investigating pediatric low - grade gliomas (PLGG), the most common type of brain tumor in children, have discovered key biological differences in
how mutated
genes combine with other
genes to
drive this childhood cancer.
«The question we asked is, «
How does the
gene network
drive early development from one cell to two cells, two cells to four cells, and so on?»»
The report recommends that the governing authorities, including research institutions, funders, and regulators, develop and maintain clear policies and mechanisms for
how public engagement will factor into research, ecological risk assessments, and public policy decisions about
gene drives.
They're continuing to sequence prostate tumors to learn
how frequently different mutations occur, as well as studying which of the rearranged
genes are actually
driving cancer.
THEY may not have known about
genes and Darwinism, but our ancestors knew
how to
drive the evolution of once - wild beasts to serve their own needs.
And that's key at a time when an increasing number of researchers are invested in understanding
how genes work,
how they affect our health, and
how they can
drive new treatment options.
Complete genome sequencing is required to identify fitness advantages conferred by
genes and
how antigenic drift in HA / NA
drive mutations throughout the genome.
Our meetings examined the variety of new genetic techniques developed to cure human malaria and Zika virus by eliminating mosquitos — such as Oxitec's sterile males, wolbachia applications, and
gene drives — and looked at
how they might be applied to protect Hawaiian birds.
The scientists who are developing
gene drives know
how ethically loaded this technology is, and, to their credit, they are trying to put the issue out there for public discussion.
Not content to provide just the missing evidence for a 60 - year - old puzzle, Wilhelm and his colleagues went on to describe what a subset of these
genes do in C. elegans and
how they might be
driving the ageing process.
The resulting datasets of regulatory genomic sequence will provide a valuable resource in determining
how non-coding DNA sequence variation may impact an individual's capacity to
drive appropriate
gene expression.
The model will describe cellular pathways that contribute to tumor formation and explain in detail
how the genetic disposition of an individual can activate expression of
genes that
drive uncontrolled cell growth and lead to cancer.
The new findings also give scientists clues about
how gene duplications can
drive evolution.
However, the problem is unsolved of
how to make these strains useful by
driving the
genes concerned into wild populations, and especially
how to ensure the necessary absolutely unbreakable linkage of these
genes to a
driving system.»