[HN Gopher] The Ultra-Selfish Gene
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       The Ultra-Selfish Gene
        
       Author : jml7c5
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2024-09-05 00:02 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (worksinprogress.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (worksinprogress.co)
        
       | e40 wrote:
       | Too bad this article didn't get more traction. Very interesting!!
        
       | K0balt wrote:
       | One thing I am not understanding here is why not target the
       | malaria parasite itself, instead of the mosquito? (Other than the
       | obvious fact that mosquitoes are annoying) it seems like that
       | would be the route of abundant caution with minimal consequences?
        
         | wahern wrote:
         | AFAIU, current mature gene drive solutions depend on sexual
         | reproduction. Protozoa usually reproduce asexually, and
         | Plasmodium falciparum in particular is haploid--only one set of
         | chromosomes--during the part of its lifecycle in humans where
         | it principally reproduces.[1] I'm not a scientist but I think
         | this poses unique and probably more difficult engineering
         | problems for building and using a gene drive, and we're not
         | nearly as far along the curve in understanding and resolving
         | them.
         | 
         | [1] The process is pretty complex:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmodium_falciparum#Meiosis
         | Seems like maybe there's opportunity there when it infects the
         | mosquito, though: "Such gametes can fuse within the mosquito to
         | form a diploid (2N) plasmodium zygote, the only diploid stage
         | in the life cycle of these parasites."
        
           | im3w1l wrote:
           | What if we used gene-drive to modify the mosquitos so that
           | malaria cannot use them as a host?
        
             | UniverseHacker wrote:
             | That's not a bad idea- but you'd have to actually figure
             | out how to do it, we already know how to do a gene drive.
        
             | avidiax wrote:
             | The article discusses this as the tact taken by the Malaria
             | Initiative.
             | 
             | https://stopmalaria.org/
        
       | twodave wrote:
       | Am I understanding correctly that the main impediment to
       | weaponizing this gene drive idea is the difficulty of spreading
       | the treatment to a broad population? How are these things applied
       | to a live subject, anyway? I had always assumed an injection, but
       | maybe an aerosol could be produced? Hopefully not.
        
         | kwhitefoot wrote:
         | It is applied to the fertilized ovum or early stage embryos I
         | think. At least that seems to be what He Jiankui did:
         | https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1178695152/china-scientist-he...
        
       | hackeraccount wrote:
       | Reading that "The astounding power of gene drives" makes the
       | concept clear but I wonder - how could this not happen by random
       | chance periodically? Maybe it's too infrequent to catch but
       | doesn't it seem like occasional some species should just go
       | extinct for seemingly no reason?
       | 
       | Further why wouldn't this be a positive attribute if one species
       | could inflict it on another? I guess that's far fetched but I'm
       | willing to admit that the logic of species interactions could
       | very well be something that I haven't thought out.
        
         | throwawayqqq11 wrote:
         | Biology is very complex and contrary to public believe
         | generally wasteful and not efficient and also not beautifully
         | designed and in harmony but messy, and so is genetics. The
         | chance that a _single_ random base pair mutation (not a gene)
         | actually gets activated /expressed _and_ forms a functioning
         | protein that is even advantageous for survival _and_ gets
         | passed down to descendants is tiny. Cancer or a rare genetic
         | condition is much more likely.
        
       | thatnerd wrote:
       | We're already engineering ecosystems in a thoughtless way. I find
       | it hard to believe that messing with mosquito genetics is going
       | to make the world significantly more risky than it already is for
       | humanity.
        
       | Workaccount2 wrote:
       | It's my understanding that the gene-edited mosquito trials have
       | largely failed, since after a few generations the female
       | mosquitos evolved to avoid the gene-edited males.
        
         | positr0n wrote:
         | Wow bummer, do you have a good link about that?
         | 
         | Screw worms are controlled very successfully this way, although
         | they are sterilized via radiation not genetic modification. I
         | wonder if that makes a difference.
         | 
         | Sorry to ask you for a link and use a YouTube video as my
         | source but it's the best I got right now:
         | https://youtu.be/Olj8arvfYj4
        
           | UniverseHacker wrote:
           | Releasing sterilized male mosquitos into the environment also
           | works very well, but is of course not gene drive, and you
           | have to keep doing it to keep populations low.
        
             | positr0n wrote:
             | Oh ok I thought that's what OP was referring to.
        
       | kwhitefoot wrote:
       | That's the best explanation of CRISPR and gene drives I've seen.
        
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