Code of the Wild

Mosquitoes, which have evolved on Earth for more than a hundred million years, could be extinguished by new genetic engineering tools in a matter of years in modern efforts to prevent malaria. The first of these immensely powerful technologies are called “gene drives.” In this episode, we sit down for a mind mending interview with Dr Kevin Esvelt of MIT’s Sculpting Evolution Lab, who is one of the key inventors of gene drives and has been a chief advocate for its current deployments to sterilize invasive rodents and drive disease laden mosquitoes to extinction. We also get a sobering perspective from James Collins, an evolutionary ecologist at Arizona State University. At the end of the day, humans have never been able to modify nature without huge unforeseen consequences, but we usually proceed anyway.

Episode Guests

Kevin Esvelt is director of the Sculpting Evolution group, which invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems.

James P. Collins is an evolutionary ecologist whose research group studies the role of host-pathogen interactions in species decline and extinction.

Reference links for this episode
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02087-5
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-us-open-air-test-of-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-deemed-a-success-180979960/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00386-0
https://www.netflix.com/title/80208910