European GMO-Free Regions Conference

Motion for a resolution on the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (B9-0035/2020); Please support amendments 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24

Dear Member of the European Parliament,

With this letter, we are asking you to support a call for a global moratorium on so-called Gene Drives as part of the European Parliament’s motion for a resolution on the 15th meeting of the

Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Biodiversity is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. An estimate of 1 million species is threatened with extinction. This is the grim conclusion of the landmark report from the

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

Gene Drives – a new eradication technology

FEATURE

A new genetic engineering technology could help eliminate malaria and stave off extinctions — if humanity decides to unleash it.

(.....)

What made the gene drive truly strange and remarkable, though, was that it didn’t stop with one set of offspring. Generation after generation, it would relentlessly copy and paste the gene it carried, until it was present in every descendant. “For most of the people in the room, you could tell it was the first they’d heard of this,” James recalled. “You could see their eyes getting big.”

Researchers assumed that CRISPR was turning off genes. They shouldn’t have.

Every living cell on Earth has proteins. Typically thousands of them, that serve as molecular machines to digest food, sense the environment, or anything else a cell must do. However, many genes, and the proteins they code for, have unknown functions. In humans, the function of about 1 out of 5 of genes is unknown. To explore these dark corners of the genome, scientists can break up DNA to disable a gene, making their encoded proteins nonfunctional, and watch what happens to cells as a result, inferring the lost function from what goes wrong.

When CRISPR/Cas9 came online in 2012, it offered scientists a tool to do exactly this – cut genes. The Cas9 enzyme searches through DNA, using a “guide RNA” to look for a specific sequence, and makes a cut when it finds a match. The gene, split in two, is repaired by the cell, but often with a large chunk missing. Many scientists assume that if a chunk of a gene is missing then the protein that it encodes will not function, or even be produced.

In many cases, they would be terribly wrong.