Wolbachia versus Gene Drives for Mosquito Control (Biotechnology and Society 2016)

Required Reading/Viewing

 * How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood Deep Look via YouTube. Jun 7, 2016.
 * Video of Bill Gates Releasing Mosquitoes Into Audience TED Talk excerpt on YouTube. Jul 8, 2009. You can watch the whole video here if you'd like (optional).
 * Mosquito Is Next Weapon to Fight Malaria Caroline Chen Bloomberg News June 16, 2016. Watch the 4 minute video at the top of the page.
 * Gene drives spread their wings Tina Saey Science News Dec 2, 1025. Introduction to gene drives.
 * A California City Is Fending Off Zika by Releasing 40,000 Mosquitoes Every Week Sarah Zhang Wired Aug. 4, 2016. This article discusses the use of Wolbachia to control mosquitos. Note differences from CRISPR gene drive.

Additional Resources

 * Burt A. (2003) Site-specific selfish genes as tools for the control and genetic engineering of natural populations. Proc. Biol. Sci. 270:921–928. Early paper discussing general concept and issues of gene drives.

Required Reading/Viewing

 * US reviews plan to infect mosquitoes with bacteria to stop disease Emily Waltz Nature News May 24, 2016.
 * How a Tiny Bacterium Called Wolbachia Could Defeat Dengue Scott O'Neill Scientific American June 1, 2015.
 * Frentiu F.D., et al. (2014) Limited Dengue Virus Replication in Field-Collected Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes Infected with Wolbachia. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 8:1–10.

Additional Resources

 * Bull, J.J. Evolutionary Decay and the Prospects for Long Term Disease Intervention using Engineered Insect Vectors. Evol. Med. Public Heal. 2015:152-166.

Required Reading/Viewing

 * Akbari, OS., et al. (2014) Novel synthetic Medea selfish genetic elements drive population replacement in Drosophila; a theoretical exploration of Medea-dependent population suppression. ACS Synthetic Biology 3:915–928.
 * Akbari OS, et al. (2013) A synthetic gene drive system for local, reversible modification and suppression of insect populations. Curr Biol. 23:671-677.
 * Wimmer EA. (2013) Comment: Insect biotechnology: controllable replacement of disease vectors. Curr Biol. 23:R453-R456.

Additional Resources

 * Champer J, Buchman A, Akbari OS. (2016) Cheating evolution: engineering gene drives to manipulate the fate of wild populations. Nat. Rev. Genet. 17:146–159.

Required Reading/Viewing

 * Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values The National Academy of Sciences Report Look at the "4 Page report in Brief" and the other links.
 * Oye K.A., et al. (2014) Biotechnology. Regulating gene drives. Science 345:626–628.
 * Esvelt K.M., et al. Concerning RNA-guided gene drives for the alteration of wild populations. Elife 3:e03401.