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Last time I talked about gene drives (genes that remove competing versions of themselves from the genome) in yeast. Now a group has published doing essentially the same thing in flies. Using this technique you can force 97% of the offspring to lose the gene variant you're targeting. Things are moving fast...
I don't often read about scientific advances that give me a sense of vertigo, but it did happen recently. And no, actually, it's not the idea that we may soon be editing the genomes of human embryos, which has gotten people quite riled up [1]. It is work out of a lab working towards the same or similar goals, though: the Church lab at Harvard [2].
The article is entitled "RNA-guided gene drives can efficiently bias inheritance in wild yeast" [3]. I'm fond of saying that humans will soon be taking control of their own evolution, but the work here was a punch in the face for me regarding with how very possible that is going to be in the near future. ( Read more... )
The article is entitled "RNA-guided gene drives can efficiently bias inheritance in wild yeast" [3]. I'm fond of saying that humans will soon be taking control of their own evolution, but the work here was a punch in the face for me regarding with how very possible that is going to be in the near future. ( Read more... )
