Mosquito eradication attracts largest ever spend on gene-drive tech
Target Malaria, the Gates Foundation-backed project at Imperial College, London, aims to use CRISPR gene editing technology to insert instructions into the DNA of malaria mosquitos, which could render them extinct. The foundation is giving an additional $35m to Target Malaria, bringing its total investment to $75m; the largest amount ever spent on gene-drive technology. The method, known as a gene drive, which is a way of transmitting traits through animal populations, has attracted opposition from environmental groups due to its ability to alter nature. 
The Gates-funded project, called Target Malaria, is based at Imperial College, London, and has been seeking to add instructions to the DNA of malaria mosquitoes that would cause them to become sterile. If released in the wild, a gene drive could push these species to extinction.

Spokesman Bryan Callahan says the Gates Foundation will give Target Malaria an additional $35 million, bringing Gates’s total investment to $75 million. That is the largest sum ever spent on gene-drive technology.

Scientists at Imperial and elsewhere first succeeded in installing gene drives in mosquitoes last year—in lab research—setting off a global debate over whether the technology is safe enough to use.

Bill Gates

The new money will help Target Malaria “explore the potential development of other constructs, as well as to start mapping out next steps for biosafety, bioethics, community engagement, and regulatory guidance,” says Callahan. “It’s basically a lot of groundwork.” The Gates Foundation views the technology as a “long shot” that won’t necessarily work but, if it does, could effectively end malaria.

The foundation previously said it plans to have a gene-drive approved for field use by 2029 somewhere in Africa. But Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered more enthusiastic prognostications in comments made this summer, saying the technology might be ready in just two years.

A gene drive works by spreading genetic instructions as animals mate. For instance, if a drive causes only male animals to be born, a population would quickly crash as it runs out of females. It may also be possible to change mosquitoes so they are unable to transmit malaria, which is a significant cause of death in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

In a report earlier this year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C., said gene drives were not yet ready for environmental release, but laid out steps that should be taken to test them safely, recommendations the Gates Foundation says it will follow.

Splitting conservationists