A group of scientists at MIT and Harvard think they may have come up with a way to keep genetically engineered mutants from messing around too much with the course of evolution.
Using a gene-editing technique called CRISPR, scientists can make these mutants by creating what’s known as a gene drive to circumvent the traditional rules of genetic inheritance. Gene drives overcome the 50-50 odds a parent has of passing on its genes to offspring, instead “driving” a desired gene edit to reoccur in nearly 100 percent of offspring.
Now, The MIT and Harvard scientists say they can eradicate concerns about the rampant spread of a genetic mutation in the wild by limiting how many generations of offspring wind up receiving the genetically engineered traits.
http://fusion.net/story/314322/daisy-chain-gene-drives/
Using a gene-editing technique called CRISPR, scientists can make these mutants by creating what’s known as a gene drive to circumvent the traditional rules of genetic inheritance. Gene drives overcome the 50-50 odds a parent has of passing on its genes to offspring, instead “driving” a desired gene edit to reoccur in nearly 100 percent of offspring.
Now, The MIT and Harvard scientists say they can eradicate concerns about the rampant spread of a genetic mutation in the wild by limiting how many generations of offspring wind up receiving the genetically engineered traits.
http://fusion.net/story/314322/daisy-chain-gene-drives/