Gene editing holds the potential of suppressing mosquito species that carry deadly diseases — and raises ethical concerns

[S]ome doctors and scientists say it is time to take the extraordinary step of unleashing gene editing to suppress mosquitoes and avoid human suffering from malaria, dengue, West Nile virus and other serious diseases.

“There are so many lives at stake with malaria that we want to make sure that this technology could be used in the near future,” said Alekos Simoni, a molecular biologist with Target Malaria, a project aiming to target vector mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet the development of this technology also raises a profound ethical question: When, if ever, is it okay to intentionally drive a species out of existence?

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But some researchers and ethicists warn it may be too dangerous to tinker with the underpinnings of life itself. … [T]he Hastings Center for Bioethics, a research institute in New York, and Arizona State University brought together a group of bioethicists to discuss the potential pitfalls of intentionally trying to drive a species to extinction. In a policy paper …  the group concluded that “deliberate full extinction might occasionally be acceptable, but only extremely rarely.”