Following surprisingly fast advances in CRISPR editing, an international summit proclaimed in December 2015 that it was "irresponsible" to proceed with human gene editing until issues in safety and efficacy were addressed.[22] One of the mechanisms that CRISPR can cause existential risk is through gene drives, which are said to have potential to "revolutionize" ecosystem management.[23] Gene drives are a novel technology that have potential to make genes spread through wild populations like wildfire. They have the potential to quickly spread resistance genes against malaria in order to rebuff the malaria parasite P. falciparum.[24] These gene drives were originally engineered in January 2015 by Ethan Bier and Valentino Gantz – this editing was spurred by the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9. In late 2015, DARPA started to study approaches that could halt gene drives if they went out of control and threatened biological species.[25]