Biotechnology is… being used to address global challenges like climate change, food insecurity, and building the bioeconomy, which directly or indirectly improve public health.
Gene drives are one such biotechnology. They are genetically engineered systems that can alter the inheritance patterns in a host species, such as a mosquito, so that a greater percentage of its progeny inherit a specific desired trait.
Research and investments in biotechnology have been used to reduce arthropod-borne infectious diseases, such as malaria and Zika, and to manage or eliminate invasive species.
While advances in biotechnology, especially gene drives, have enormous potential to mitigate several of the largest challenges faced by our society today, these technologies also pose risks.
For gene drives specifically, concerns have been expressed about the potential ecological and environmental consequences that might arise from releasing gene drives into the wild, where some are expected to be able to self-propagate and self-sustain themselves indefinitely.
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As research and investment in gene drives advances and there are bigger pushes to expand the bioeconomy more broadly, it will be important to have governance frameworks in place before these biotechnologies are widely used.
