Tagged: gene drives

Genetic solutions to pest control - Guest Work

Guest Author • Sep 05, 2018 •

• 1080,
• CRISPR,
• gene drives,
• pest control,
• predator free 2050,
• trojan female

Neil Gemmell New Zealand stunned the world in 2016 announcing a goal to eradicate mammalian predators by 2050. The key targets are possums, rats and stoats; species that cause enormous damage to our flora and fauna and in some cases are an economic burden to our productive sectors. As all of these species were introduced to New Zealand from elsewhere … Read More

Gene drives could wipe out island pest populations – study - News

John Kerr • Aug 10, 2017 •

• biological control,
• conservation,
• gene drives,
• genes,
• mice,
• rats,
• sterility

An entire island population of invasive mice could be eradicated by the single release of 100 engineered mice carrying ‘gene drives’ which spread infertility throughout a population. The finding comes from a new study which used computer simulations to investigate how gene drives – essentially sets of ‘selfish genes’ which are more likely to pass on to the next … Read More