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INCREASED LIKELIHOOD. "Although several types of selfish genetic elements exist in nature, few have been successfully engineered in the laboratory thus far. With the discovery of RNA-guided CRISPR–Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated 9) nucleases, which can be utilized to create, streamline and improve synthetic gene drives, this is rapidly changing." https://lnkd.in/eB6cXrs View in LinkedIn

ENGINEERED TRAITS. "Scientists have long known of naturally occurring selfish genetic elements that can increase the odds that they will be inherited. This advantage allows them to spread through populations even if they reduce the fitness of individual organisms. Many researchers have suggested that these elements might serve as the basis for ‘gene drives’ capable of spreading engineered traits through wild populations." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

EDITING POPULATIONS. "The ability to edit populations of sexual species would offer substantial benefits to humanity and the environment. For example, RNA-guided gene drives could potentially prevent the spread of disease, support agriculture by reversing pesticide and herbicide resistance in insects and weeds, and control damaging invasive species." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING. "Gene drives may be capable of addressing ecological problems by altering entire populations of wild organisms, but their use has remained largely theoretical due to technical constraints. Here we consider the potential for RNA-guided gene drives based on the CRISPR nuclease Cas9 to serve as a general method for spreading altered traits through wild populations over many generations." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

"SUPPRESSION DRIVES reduce the size of the targeted population. These ‘genetic load’ drives would spread rapidly through minimally impaired heterozygotes when rare, and eventually cause the population to crash or even become extinct due to the accumulated load of recessive mutations." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

HOMING. "Because copying causes the fraction of offspring that inherit the cassette to be greater than 1/2, these genes can drive through a population even if they reduce the reproductive fitness of the individual organisms that carry them. Over many generations, this self-sustaining process can theoretically allow a gene drive to spread from a small number of individuals until it is present in all members of a population." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

GENE DRIVE. "Natural homing endonuclease genes exhibit drive by cutting the corresponding locus of chromosomes lacking them. This induces the cell to repair the break by copying the nuclease gene onto the damaged chromosome via homologous recombination. The copying process is termed ‘homing’, while the endonuclease-containing cassette that is copied is referred to as a ‘gene drive’ or simply a ‘drive’." https://lnkd.in/ewXxsGD View in LinkedIn

France becomes first country to ban plastic cups and plates http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/europe/france-bans-plastic-cups-plates/index.html View in LinkedIn

GUT MICROBES AFFECT BRAIN. "Here, we report that colonization by gut microbiota impacts mammalian brain development and subsequent adult behavior...our results suggest that the microbial colonization process initiates signaling mechanisms that affect neuronal circuits involved in motor control and anxiety behavior." https://lnkd.in/e7Pmtsp View in LinkedIn

TWIST ON SELECTION. "A selective constraint "is selective pressure that determines and limits the number of neutral/beneficial mutations that can take place. The more constrained a locus is under selection, the easier it is to generate deleterious mutations and the harder it is to generate beneficial ones; this can be reflected in low substitution rates at such loci in populations with time." https://lnkd.in/e6Dxb5h View in LinkedIn